A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. One of the reasons that people may not take action to mitigate climate change is that they lack first-hand experience of its potential consequences. From this perspective, individuals who have direct experience of phenomena that may be linked to climate change would be more likely to be concerned by the issue and thus more inclined to undertake sustainable behaviours. So far, the evidence available to test this hypothesis is limited, and in part contradictory 1-4 . Here we use national survey data collected from 1,822 individuals across the UK in 2010, to examine the links between direct flooding experience, perceptions of climate change and preparedness to reduce energy use. We show that those who report experience of flooding express more concern over climate change, see it as less uncertain and feel more confident that their actions will have an effect on climate change. Importantly, these perceptual differences also translate into a greater willingness to save energy to mitigate climate change. Highlighting links between local weather events and climate change is therefore likely to be a useful strategy for increasing concern and action.

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Introduction For the UK, and particularly England, a shift in approach to flood governance has been gaining momentum since the early 1990s, broadly marked by a move from`flood defence' to`flood risk management' (FRM). At a general level, notions of controlling and defending against floods have given way to discourses which suggest we should make space for water' (DEFRA, 2005). This entails greater emphasis on soft engineering approaches and more strategies that work with natural processes, land-use planning, and flood abatement techniques such as reforestation (DEFRA, 2005; Tunstall, et al, 2004). In this emergent context, delivery of government policy is to be achieved through guiding the conduct of citizens, private enterprise, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and other governance agencies at arms length from central government [eg the Environment Agency (EA)]. These contemporary changes in flood policy are by now well documented and have been subject to prior research and discussion (Johnson and Priest, 2008; Tunstall et al, 2004). While previous analyses have provided important insights into the processes of change in English FRM, we develop an interpretation of these processes of change in terms of deeper shifts in political rationalities (see also Pidgeon and Butler, 2009). Some of the newly advocated approaches to the structural management of flood risk can be seen as having been developed in response to concerns about sustainability, but this is not necessarily true of modes of delivery (although these are not easily separated out). Instead, the changing approach to the delivery of government objectives, in particular through noncoercive guidance of citizen and organisational conduct, can be seen as correspondent with a wider set of shifts in political governmentality that some have termed`advanced liberal' (Rose, 1996). Rose designates advanced liberal democracies, such as the UK, as seeking particular forms of rule or techniques of government:

In this paper we discuss the importance of framing the question of public acceptance of sustainable energy transitions in terms of values and a 'whole-system' lens. This assertion is based on findings arising from a major research project examining public values, attitudes and acceptability with regards to whole energy system change using a mixed-method (six deliberative workshops, n = 68, and a nationally representative survey, n = 2441), interdisciplinary approach. Through the research we identify a set of social values associated with desirable energy futures in the UK, where the values represent identifiable cultural resources people draw on to guide their preference formation about particular aspects of energy system change. As such, we characterise public perspectives as being underpinned by six value clusters relating to efficiency and wastefulness, environment and nature, security and stability, social justice and fairness, autonomy and power, and processes and change. We argue that this 'value system' provides a basis for understanding core reasons for public acceptance or rejection of different energy system aspects and processes. We conclude that a focus on values that underpin more specific preferences for energy system change brings insights that could provide a basis for improved dialogue, more robust decisionmaking, and for anticipating likely points of conflict in energy transitions. 2015 Z. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

This paper examines some of the science communication challenges involved when designing and conducting public deliberation processes on issues of national importance. We take as our illustrative case study a recent research project investigating public values and attitudes toward future energy system change for the United Kingdom. National-level issues such as this are often particularly difficult to engage the public with because of their inherent complexity, derived from multiple interconnected elements and policy frames, extended scales of analysis, and different manifestations of uncertainty. With reference to the energy system project, we discuss ways of meeting a series of science communication challenges arising when engaging the public with national topics, including the need to articulate systems thinking and problem scale, to provide balanced information and policy framings in ways that open up spaces for reflection and deliberation, and the need for varied methods of facilitation and data synthesis that permit access to participants' broader values. Although resource intensive, national-level deliberation is possible and can produce useful insights both for participants and for science policy.public engagement | national dialogue | energy system transitions