Abstract
Science is the cornerstone for modern society. Science saves lives, powers sectors, and forms the foundation of countless technological innovations. Science also protects our planet, providing politicians and citizens alike with the data to inform the creation and execution of some the nation's most stringent environmental protections.
Unfortunately, science is taking a hit in popular opinion, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the United States. Between 2018 and 2019, distrust in science in the United States grew from 27 percent to 33 percent. 1
This is not a small sect that can be ignored or written off as outcasts—this is a third of the U.S. population. The sheer size of this group should be concerning because, collectively, those who distrust science can undermine the field of science and make an otherwise legitimate field controversial.
Nowhere was the threat associated with the distrust in science more apparent than our nation's reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. As we face an unprecedented pandemic in the novel coronavirus, science could have softened the blow. Unfortunately the federal government was marred by slow response, limited testing capabilities and initial statements that downplayed expert projections on the virus's impact. 2
Perhaps just as importantly, distrust in science spells disaster for our planet.
Climate change, inherently linked to science, is notoriously complicated—climate models must consider seemingly infinite and ever-changing factors when projecting a future warming world. But despite these complexities, climate change boils down to this: Burning fossil fuels release gasses that trap heat into our atmosphere and make the planet warmer.
The scientific consensus is overwhelming—over 97 percent of scientists agree 3 that humans are warming the planet through greenhouse gas emissions. For at least 30 years (and some would say 50 to 60 years), politicians, scientists, and industries have recognized the causes of climate change and its catastrophic impacts.4,5
Still, people are discrediting and distrusting science, as well as the impacts of climate change. The longer it takes to correct this, the worse we all are. We've already seen how science could have lightened the impacts of the pandemic. In times of crisis, the speed and scale of the response can make all the difference in the world, as made clear by reports of South Korea's success in mitigating the spread of the virus through rapid resource mobilization and aggressive testing.
Often, this speed and scale is rooted in the public's trust in science. The same can be said about our planet.
Roots of Distrust in Science
So, what's happening here? A lot of American distrust in science can be traced back to a handful of skeptics. A few nonscientists questioning or outright denying climate science have planted enough doubt to create mass confusion among the American electorate.
Media is partially to blame for legitimizing this doubt: The traditional “fair and balanced” approach to journalism has given equal platforms to both climate deniers and scientists, despite nearly unanimous scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is heating the planet.
And media today includes social media, the Wild West of veracity. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram use algorithms that personalize news feeds, restricting the totality of the content, like science or climate change content, that users see. 6 Not only does this create an environment that favors rhetoric over scientific data, it fosters an echo chamber of like-minded people sheltered from exposure to opposing viewpoints.
These algorithms create the ideal breeding ground for climate denial: Social media allows people who distrust science or deny climate change to surround themselves with people who agree with them, allowing users to validate their beliefs and positions. When people hear the same opinion stated repeatedly, they can overestimate the prevalence, popularity, and even accuracy of that statement. This is true even if that information comes from the same source, or media outlet. 7
Add fake news to the mix, and we have an even more insidious problem. Many people can't tell the difference between real and fake news online, and a recent study from Brown University found that a quarter of all tweets on Twitter are from bots.8,9 That number is even higher for science-related tweets: Bots are responsible for 38 percent of tweets about “fake science.”
All this noise fosters and feeds confusion, entrenching beliefs to the level of dogma. As voting constituencies question the basis of science and climate change, so too will their political representatives. These same people can, and do, elect politicians who reflect their confusion, denial or at the very least a lack of urgency. After all, if the science is confusing, we might as well take a wait-and-see approach to climate change.
Climate-denying politicians, once in office, can fuel disinformation about climate change while simultaneously taking checks from Big Oil, Big Gas, and Big Coal. Corporations like ExxonMobil have known about the causes and impacts of climate change for nearly half a century but hid this knowledge from the public and have spent the last 30 years fueling misinformation campaigns around climate science, hiring the same PR teams that defended the tobacco industry in the mid-20th century. 10
And because these corporations use politicians as instruments for their work, industries indirectly control the halls of Congress, effectively blocking climate legislation. Just as millions died from delayed action on cigarette regulation, millions will die in the coming decades from delayed action on climate change. Many have already died as the coronavirus has spread throughout the world.
Distrust in science is not a new idea, but it's reaching new heights of authority and influence as the current U.S. administration actively discredits science by dismantling environmental regulations and striking the word “climate change” from government websites.
These factors only compound what many people already feel about science: intimidation. Science feels inaccessible to many people, and understandably so. An enormous amount of training and sophistication is required to decipher the jargon, tables, graphs, experiments, and the highly specified of the oftentimes abstract world of science. Plus, science often takes place in government agencies and academic institutions, the so-called “ivory towers” of the world.
These factors compound what many people already feel about science: intimidation.
All this creates an invisible boundary between everyday citizens and science. Under the right conditions, inaccessibility turns into intimidation, creating a widening divide between scientists and citizens. And when intimidation festers, it can lead to distrust.
A Broken World Caused by Distrust in Science
The widening gap between citizens and science should concern us all. As Americans continue to distrust science and institutions, the planet will continue to warm, causing irreversible damage to ecosystems and communities, as well as immeasurable human suffering.
As America collectively disconnects itself from science, it also falls behind on the geopolitical stage. One of the first moves by the current administration was to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the United Nations-backed international agreement on climate change. A country historically marked by its status as a world leader in innovations and scientific breakthroughs is now reversing course, free falling into the past rather than trailblazing into a future of sustainable, green technology.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is catching up to us. America is no longer the uncontested world leader in scientific research. Though the federal budget for research and development has traditionally grown each year, countries like China are gaining fast: Between 2000 and 2017, science funding in the United States grew 4.7 percent per year; during that same time, science funding in China grew 17 percent per year. 11
On its surface, a handful of people who believe the moon landing was a hoax or the Earth is flat can be ignored. But when enough of these people enter the popular realm and question something as widely agreed upon as the causes and impacts of climate change, we conflate scientific consensus with the popular opinion of denial and lose faith in both sides. Enough doubt can discredit everything, leaving us with nothing.
As we discredit and distrust science, we also stand to lose science's unifying force. In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy launched the New Frontier, which effectively mobilized the country for the better part of a decade to do something previously thought impossible: sending a man to the moon. Though the merits of the moon landing are debated, it nevertheless mobilized and united the country, showing how science represents the power of a nation or nations to collectively work together toward a common goal to achieve greatness.
We can learn much from our collective journey to send humans to the moon. We need that same collective spirit, pride, and action to fight climate change, the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. And to do that, we need a diverse, mobilized base grounded in science.
What Can We Do?
So, if the world hangs in the balance, we must do something.
One way to battle distrust in science is to get people interested in it. As journalist Brooke Jarvis writes, “Interest leads to tracking, which leads to awareness, which leads to concern, which leads to action.” 12
To get more people interested in science, we must first make science more relatable. That's where communication, specifically how we write and talk about science, comes in. Science and academic writing have the reputation of being stilted, inaccessible, and therefore unreadable by anyone outside the narrow purview of academic audiences or those with access to a university library.
Effective communication can smash those preconceptions.
Facts and figures alone are not working. The last few decades have demonstrated as much. To change this, we must build narratives around people, giving audiences something, and someone, to relate to. Telling stories about climate change through the eyes of a person affected by it is much more effective than simply reporting on the results of an academic study. We need climate stories told through a human lens. Science needs empathy to inspire action.
Science needs empathy to inspire action.
Science is naturally complicated, but how we communicate about it doesn't have to be so. If science is currently too intimidating, we must do our best to replace jargon with less nuanced and more conversational language. It's time to mainstream science, to break down the barriers and build a trust and comfort in science again.
To foster trust in science, Earth Day Network is using technology to put scientific curiosity in every pocket. We are rolling out a mobile app, Earth Challenge 2020, ahead of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Challenge 2020 is a citizen–science campaign that leverages today's technology, like smartphones and machine learning, to create a globally accessible tool that anyone can use to collect, review, and learn about several subjects: plastic pollution, insects, air quality, climate, food security, and water quality.
The campaign aims to aggregate one billion data points within the month of April for Earth Day. Earth Challenge 2020 will keep the momentum going after April and through the next decade.
As we struggle with the global crises of climate change and coronavirus, citizen science and the Earth Challenge program allow us to collectively contribute to overcoming those challenges together. By reinforcing the importance and the power of scientific information and engaging individuals around the world in one collective action, Earth Challenge 2020 is an opportunity to maximize our collective impact regardless of our physical location.
Anything we do, any fraction of a degree of warming we avoid, will save millions of species from extinction and prevent immeasurable human suffering. Understanding and trusting science is the foundation of this future.
By empowering individuals, we can bridge the divide between scientists and the general public. Disseminating scientific knowledge will be one of the many things we need to curb greenhouse gas emissions, push us toward a more sustainable future, and, ultimately, save humanity from ourselves.
Kathleen Rogers is president of Earth Day Network. She has worked for over 20 years as an environmental attorney and advocate, focusing on international and domestic environmental public policy and law.