Public engagement with marine climate change issues: (Re)framings, understandings and responses

Communicating about ocean health: theoretical and practical considerations

“…Indeed, numerous scholars have argued that public engagement is critical in building support for environmental policy [22] and for the foundational role of public opinion surveys that gauge levels of public awareness and concern about environmental issues [23]. Although research into public perceptions of ocean health issues to date is rather limited, the available evidence creates a portrait of a public that is concerned but uninformed about the specific threats that oceans face [24]. Analysing data from a US national probability sample, Steel et al report that few respondents felt 'informed' (10.0%) or 'very well informed' (4.3%) about US ocean and coastal policy issues [15].…”

“…In related work Chilvers et al analysed responses from a survey of n ¼ 1001 UK residents [24], which similarly suggests that the public is less attuned than are scientists to the role of climate change and ocean acidification in ocean health matters. When prompted for 'the most important environmental issues' that come to mind when thinking about the ocean, 'pollution' was again offered by a sizable portion of respondents (21%), surpassed only by 'coastal erosion' (28%).…”

“…virtual reality) unfamiliarity compared with terrestrial environmental issues, those occurring in oceans may feel unfamiliar to large segments of the public, who may think about marine issues from a highly 'terra-centric' perspective opinion surveys reveal limited knowledge of specific threats facing oceans [15] 'most salient' issues reflect a terra-centric bias (e.g. coastal erosion) [24] interactive tools that aggregate and simplify data for the public (e.g. Ocean Health Index) [44] metaphors that ground marine systems in terrestrial concepts (e.g.…”

Microplastics in personal care products: Exploring perceptions of environmentalists, beauticians and students

“…Focus groups were run, where participants were 27 shown the quantity of microbeads found in individual high-street personal care products. 28 Qualitative analysis showed that while the environmentalists were originally aware of the 29 issue, it lacked visibility and immediacy for the beauticians and students. Yet when shown 30 the amount of plastic in a range of familiar everyday personal care products, all participants 31 expressed considerable surprise and concern at the quantities and potential impact.…”

Making Waves: Marine Citizen Science for Impact

“…A review of past marine citizen science projects to inform future engagement is particularly timely given the documented increase in the number of marine citizen science projects in Australia (Sbrocchi, 2014). Within this context, citizen science has been identified as having significant potential to contribute to increased understanding of the marine environment and potential changes through data collection (Dickinson et al, 2012;Martin et al, 2016), and there are calls for more meaningful community engagement in both marine science research and science knowledge (Chilvers et al, 2014;Commonwealth of Australia, 2015). The 4 case-studies below outline various steps in the growth of RCA and provides examples of how the organization and citizen science initiatives have evolved over the past 15 years.…”