CFP: Biodiversity and climate change
Call for abstracts ECREA Science & Environmental Communication Section
Dates: 16-17 October 2023
Hosted by: Segovia Campus of the University of Valladolid, Spain Location: Segovia (Spain) and online (hybrid)
Organised by: Mette Marie Roslyng, Aalborg University, Denmark Miguel Vicente Mariño, University of Valladolid, Spain Mikkel Fugl Eskjær, Aalborg University, Denmark
Biodiversity and climate change – communicating interlocking dimensions of the ecological crisis The current ecological crisis is a crisis of biodiversity and climate change. Both topics have surpassed the safe limits of our planetary boundaries. However, biodiversity and climate change are also inextricably connected. Climate change accelerates the loss of biodiversity and natural habitats while biodiversity and healthy ecosystems improve resilience to climate change. Despite the obvious links between biodiversity and climate change, biodiversity often seems to slip under the radar compared to global climate change. Some studies suggest that climate change gets up to eight times more media attention compared to the biodiversity crisis.
In recent years, there have been a few noteworthy exceptions to this general pattern. The 2019 rapport by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) concluded that we are facing an alarming increase in the human caused extinction rate of species and natural habitats. The publication triggered considerable media attention and renewed public concern for biodiversity and habitat loss. The 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal (COP15) which led to the 30-by-30 agreement (protection of 30% of Earth’s land and ocean by 2030) had a similar effect. Both events momentarily changed the discourse on the ecological crisis by turning the attention to the deterioration of ecosystems and its consequences for climate change. However, with the publication of IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report on climate change (2022-23) global media has once again turned their attention away from biodiversity and ecosystem services. This suggests that the risks of climate change may be easier to grasp and communicate than the decline in biodiversity. As a recent report concluded: “the scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts”. This raises questions about the dynamics behind media attention to climate change and biodiversity. What are the mechanisms governing the two agendas? When and where do they differ? And why do media report less on biodiversity compared to climate change? It also raises wider communicative questions about global and national environmental policies from key actors that relate to biodiversity and climate change as well as possible scientific controversies underlining the issue. The ECREA Science and Environment Communication Section’s interim conference intends to investigate the full range of biodiversity communication. Both as a topic on its own, but also in relation to climate change and the wider ecological crisis. We wish to explore how we communicate on biodiversity in the press and digital media. How can communication on biodiversity help raise awareness and encourage public engagement? How do the media communicate the complexities of ecosystem services. And how are habitat loss and the need to rebuild ecosystems visualized. We invite papers that address issues relating broadly to biodiversity communication. We welcome contributions from Environmental and Science Communication, Political Communication, Strategic Communications, Environmental Humanities, or other related fields, as well as papers adopting diverse methodological approaches.
Topics for submission include, but are not limited to:
• Biodiversity as media agenda
• Biodiversity as risk in the Anthropocene
• Crises of biodiversity and climate change: connections and disconnections?
• The politicisation and de-politicisation of biodiversity on global, local, and national agendas
• Scientific conflicts and controversies pertaining to biodiversity
• Biodiversity and issues of inequality and environmental justice
• Biodiversity and more-than-human communication
• Educational communication and biodiversity
Abstracts, including title, name, affiliation, and email of presenter(s), should be no longer than 400 words (excl. references) outlining research questions, methodology and the expected contributions of the presentation. Please indicate if you plan to participate on site or on-line. Submission should be sent to Mette Marie Roslyng on the following email (mmroslyng@ikp.aau.dk) before June 30th, 2023.