Science communication researchers and experts to discuss effective climate crisis communication and reporting about extreme weather events.
The University of Ljubljana (UL), the online magazine Alternator and the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana are organising the 2nd International Science Communication Conference on 10 and 11 October 2024, this time with the focus on communicating climate crisis and extreme weather events. The success of the first international science communication conference in 2022, with more than 50 participants from all over the world, highlighted the deficit in this field and the need to develop this area further. Moreover, this year's overarching theme is highly topical and represents only a part of UL’s activities in this field.
The heat waves, forest fires and catastrophic floods of the last two years all over Europe and in other parts of the world, as well as record-breaking temperatures, were just one of many recent extreme weather events that contributed to the increasing media attention to climate change and, more importantly, the emerging climate crisis. The latter is not just another political and media agenda topic but a broader socio-systemic challenge, including in academia, politics and everyday life choices.
The issues of communicating the climate crisis and extreme weather events will be addressed by experts in the practice, research, training or education of science communication (and related fields) and emphasised by keynote speakers James Painter (Reuters Institute, Oxford University) Anastasia Denisova (Westminster University), Matjaž Ličer (Slovenian Environment Agency and National Institute of Biology), and Tjaša Pogačar (University of Ljubljana). Among the issues that other conference papers will address are the questions of the science of climate change, climate scepticism and denialism, climate change in agriculture, attitudes, norms and role perceptions of climate journalists and others.
Before the conference, the Rector of the University of Ljubljana, Prof. Gregor Majdič, emphasised:
Science must benefit society as a whole and must not remain closed behind the doors of laboratories and cabinets. That is one of the reasons why this year, the University of Ljubljana is organising the second international conference on communicating science, bringing together top international experts to share their experiences on how best to present scientific discoveries credibly and convincingly to everyone. Despite the overwhelming evidence of climate change and global warming, and the fact that the effects of climate change are being felt in Slovenia, for example with the devastating fires two years ago and the floods last year, there are still many climate change deniers among us. So, one of the central themes of this year's conference will be how to convince people that it is high time to act otherwise our planet may become uninhabitable for our children and grandchildren.
For more information, please contact science.communication@uni-lj.si.
The website with additional information.
Dr. Dejan Jontes, Associate Professor, Rector's assistant for organisation and communication