University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Graduate Student Association, Center for Oceans and Human Change and Climate Change Interactions, and NERRS Science Collaborative invite you to attend the Spring 2021 Seminar Series with Dr. Susanne Moser.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES SPRING 2021 SEMINAR SERIES

To Be of Use: Making Climate Change Science Relevant in a Fast-Paced, Difficult World

Susanne Moser, Ph.D.

Director and Principal Researcher of Susanne Moser Research & Consulting

Abstract: For many students and well-established scientists, staying in the lab doing experiments, collecting data in the field, or developing ever-improved models, and writing up the results in peer-reviewed journals is not enough. That is not why they went into science. Many want to learn about the world to make a difference in it – for example on environmental issues, climate change, or societal responses to sustainability challenges. But how to make sure science is even relevant to what decision-makers and policy-makers need? How do we communicate science, to whom, and how? How do we do this in a world that seems to speed up from year to year? Can we stay relevant? Scientists’ interactions with decision-makers have gone through several revisions of the so-called “social contract of science with society”.

In this presentation I will briefly characterize prior stages in science-policy/practice interactions, and then think about how scientists and their research can become – and stay – relevant in the fast-paced and often challenging world in which policies and decisions get made. I will explore, especially, the implications of accelerating climate change, which constitutes not only a uniquely challenging topic for (physical, natural and social science) research, but faces growing demands and unique challenges if it wishes to be “of use” or decision-relevant. I will propose some possible pathways for the engaged science of the future, placing these possibilities into the contentious debate between “the accelerated academe” and “slow science.” In doing so, I will raise questions and invite us into reflections about what it means to be a “scientist” in a fast, chaotic and increasingly difficult world, how to effectively engage with others and communicate this difficult topic, and how to find one’s place, i.e., shape a career, in engaged science.

Bio: Dr. Susanne Moser is Director and Principal Researcher of Susanne Moser Research & Consulting, based in Hadley, MA; Research Faculty in the Environmental Studies Department of Antioch University New England; and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at UMass-Amherst. As an independent scholar and consultant, Susi works in the US and internationally with focus on adaptation to climate change, science-policy interactions, climate change communication, and psycho-social resilience in the face of the traumatic and transformative challenges associated with climate change.

Dr. Moser is a geographer by training (Ph.D. 1997, Clark University). Previously she served as a Social Science Research Fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, a Research Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and a staff scientist for climate change for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Susanne Moser is co-editor with Max Boykoff (University of Colorado-Boulder) of a prize-winning edited volume on Successful Adaptation (Routledge, 2013), and with Lisa Dilling (University of Colorado-Boulder) of a groundbreaking anthology on climate change communication, called Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change, published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press. She has contributed various IPCC assessment reports, was a member of the federal advisory committee on the Third US National Climate Assessment, co-lead that committee's Engagement and Communication working group, and served as one of the Convening Lead Authors on the assessment's coastal chapter. She has contributed to various regional and state climate assessments and served on scientific advisory boards for Future Earth, the International Science Council, the International Human Dimensions Program, US National Research Council, and numerous other organizations. Susi is a fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership, Kavli Frontiers of Science, Donella Meadows Leadership, Google Science Communication, and Walton Sustainability Solutions Programs.