Over the past year, I have had the great opportunity to work with faculty and students at the The University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute and their NSF-funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) – the first of its kind to focus explicitly on adaptation to abrupt climate change. Here is a short description on the rationale for the program, a joint initiative between the Climate Change Institute and the School of Policy and International Affairs at the University of Maine. The paradigm that climate change operates slowly and gradually shifted with the discovery of abrupt climate change (ACC), which refers to rapid state changes in the climate system that are either transient or persistent, and of variable magnitude. We now recognize that abrupt climate change is one of the greatest threats to the sustainability of human society and ecosystem services, yet economic and social systems are rarely designed for abrupt nonlinear environmental change. The Adaptation to Abrupt Climate Change (A2C2) IGERT is a doctoral training program for students in earth sciences, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, international affairs, and economics. A2C2 is designed to train the next generation of natural and social scientists to meet the critical societal challenge of human adaptation to abrupt climate change (ACC). In the Spring of 2013, I taught a week-long workshop for students involved in the IGERT program and other faculty and professionals at the University of Maine. Participants were introduced to research and strategies for more effectively engaging the public and policymakers on sustainability-related issues. The workshop also covered different schools of thought, modes of practice, and areas of research relevant to navigating the intersections among science, policy, and communication. The goal was for participants to gain an integrated understanding of the institutions, organizations, and actors involved in public communication and policymaker engagement; and the different roles they can play as experts, professionals and educators. In Fall 2013, I participated in a retreat for faculty, organizational partners and students involved in the A2C2 program. To generate discussion and small group idea generation, I presented a brief overview on communication challenges and strategies relevant to preparing for abrupt climate change. In my presentation, I focused particularly on sea level rise and other coastal impacts. I also created a web page and list of relevant readings and resources that I will continue to update. You can find the list at the link below. http://climateshiftproject.org/preparing-and-planning-ahead-for-abrupt-climate-change/

1. Preparing for Abrupt Climate Change
Building Civic Capacity and Overcoming Polarization
@MCNisbet
Matthew C. Nisbet
Associate Professor
School of Communication
American University
Washington D.C.
Climate Change Institute
IGERT Adapting to Abrupt Climate Change Retreat
University of Maine Darling Center 9.13.13

2. Risk Perceptions and Personal Experience
@MCNisbet

5. Focus on Mitigation at Expense of Adaptation
Design to Win Foundations, 2007-2010 / $368M Distributed Across 1248 Grants
@MCNisbetNisbet, M.C. (2011). Climate Shift: Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate. Washington, DC: American
University, School of Communication.

6. @MCNisbetLuers, A., Pope, C., Kroodsma, D. (2013). Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Engineers, economists, policy
wonks, big budget NGOS, activists
committed to “fight the good fight.”
Geographers, sociologists, and
ecologists, hazard risk
managers, disaster responders, smaller
budget NGOs, who are committed to
solving problems and saving lives.

7. Hurricanes and Climate Change
Advocacy, Uncertainty and Political Clarity
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@MCNisbetLuers, A., Pope, C., Kroodsma, D. (2013). Stanford Social Innovation Review.

8. Climate Change as Cultural Debate:
Worldviews and Group Identity
@MCNisbetKahan, D. (forthcoming). Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk, in Handbook of Risk Theory: Epistemology, Decision
Theory, Ethics and Social Implications of Risk 725-760 (eds. Hillerbrand, R., Sandin, P., Roeser, S. & Peterson, M.) (Springer London, Limited, 2012).

9. Climate Change as Cultural Debate:
More Information Increases Polarization
@MCNisbetKahan, D. et al. (2012). The Polarizing Impact of Perceived Climate Change Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks. Nature
Climate Change.

10. Public Opinion in Down East Maine
Hancock & Washington Counties, 2010
@MCNisbetSafford, T.G. & Hamilton, L. (2010, Winter). Ocean Views: Coastal Environmental Problems As Seen by Downeast Maine
Residents. Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire.

11. Morality Binds, Divides and Blinds Us to Threats
@MCNisbet
“A basic principle of moral psychology is that „morality
binds and blinds.‟ In many pre-agricultural societies,
groups achieved trust and unity by circling around
sacred objects. In modern societies, much larger groups
bind themselves together by treating certain books,
flags, leaders or ideals as sacred and by symbolically
circling around them. But if your team circles too fast,
you lose the ability to see clearly or think for yourself.
You go blind to evidence that contradicts your group‟s
moral consensus, and you become enraged at
teammates who suggest that the other side is not
entirely bad.” – New York Times, Nov. 7, 2012

12. Energy Resilience in an Era of Abrupt Climate Change?
@MCNisbetNisbet, Maibach, & Leiserowitz (2011). American Journal of Public Health.

13. @MCNisbet
Present protection will need to be upgraded to avoid average global flood losses from socio-economic change, climate change, and
subsidence that total US$1 trillion or more per year. This estimate optimistically assumes 10 cm SLR in 2030, 20 cm in 2050,
and 30 cm in 2070 with equal global distribution.
Nature Climate Change 3, 802–806 (2013)

14. Voices from Coastal Communities
Fatalism and Low Efficacy
@MCNisbet
Moser, S. C. (in press). In: Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Linking Science and Practice in a Rapidly Changing
World, ed. S.C. Moser and M.T. Boykoff, Routledge, London.

15. Community Dialogue After Hurricane Isabel
Anne Arundel County, Maryland
@MCNisbet

16. Community Dialogue and Polarization
GMU, USNA, Dewberry
@MCNisbet
Timeline of Actions
 2003 Hurricane Isabel floods Annapolis, coastal communities
 2007 Gov. O‟Malley creates MD Commission on Climate Change
 Science Working Group uses 2007 IPCC models to estimate sea-level rise
projections for state from 2.7 ft to 3.4 ft by 2100.
 Recommend planners anticipate 1ft rise by 2050 and 2ft rise by 2100.
 Anne Arundel County and Annapolis begin their own evaluation process.
Project Focus
• County mail survey, N = 300
• Deliberative forums, 2 moderators at each table, N = 40
• Risk projection web site
CASI Final Project Report (2013).

17. Cultural Identity Explains Substantial Proportion
of Risk Perceptions and Policy Preferences
@MCNisbetCASI Final Project Report (2013).
“Local policy discourses on
sea-level rise are not emerging
into a neutral arena, but one in
which cultural meanings have
already begun to form. In this
environment, traditional
communication strategies of
providing „objective‟
assessments are unlikely to
staunch further issue
polarization, as has been case
in Virginia and North Carolina.”

18. Brokering Shared Identity and Outlook
Localized Dialogue Softens Cultural Cognition
@MCNisbetCASI Final Project Report (2013).

19. Cultural Identity Explains Substantial Proportion
of Risk Perceptions and Policy Preferences
@MCNisbetCASI Final Project Report (2013).

20. http://www.futurecoast.info/

21. Experts and Coastal Property Owners
From Trusted Sources of Information to Brokers of Dialogue
@MCNisbetCone, J et al 2013. Reframing Engagement Methods for Climate Change Adaptation. Coastal Management, 41: 345-360.

22. Experts and Coastal Property Owners
From Trusted Sources of Information to Brokers of Dialogue
@MCNisbetCone, J et al 2013. Reframing Engagement Methods for Climate Change Adaptation. Coastal Management, 41: 345-360.

23. Research Informs Design of Communication
@MCNisbet

24. Creating Shared Understanding & Consolidating Views
Recommendations
@MCNisbet
Recommendations
 Feature adaptive strategies – effective and failed – in engagement efforts.
 Property owners prefer to hear about experiences of neighbors more so than advice
from scientific experts.
 Host local meetings with property owners, experts, and officials to discuss changes,
impacts, and risks that they are experiencing.
 Participants believed that simply coming together was productive in its own right.
 Identify and highlight “early adopters,” local property owners who have already started
to engage in adaptive behaviors.
“What is required is creating conditions for helping communities make
meaning out of the science and its findings for themselves and their local
conditions in ways that support their including that science into their regular
decision-making…Good models that put scientists, communicators, and
publics into dialogue about what they know, what it means, and how to put it
to work suggest using group processes and visible thinking routines for
creating and sustaining dialogues about climate change.”

25. Preparing and Planning Ahead for Abrupt Climate Change
A Public Health Prevention Approach
@MCNisbetMaibach EW, Roser-Renouf C, Leiserowitz A (2008). Communication and Marketing as Climate Change Intervention
Assets: A Public Health Perspective. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(5), 488-500.

26. Preparing and Planning Ahead for Abrupt Climate Change
Building a Civic Science Infrastructure and Network
@MCNisbet
Nisbet, M.C., Hixon, M., Moore, K.D., & Nelson, M. (2010). The Four Cultures: New Synergies for Engaging Society on
Climate Change. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8, 329-331.