Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture

it will not happen at all [62]. Likewise, where a scientist may use the words “positive” or “nega- tive” to indicate the direction of a relationship, nonscientific audiences may interpret these terms meaning “good” and “bad,” respectively [67]. The way of framing climate change, and the choice of terms when doing so, is therefore highly important due to its influence on audi- ence interpretation. Communication challenges with producers Different stakeholder groups have varying beliefs about climate change [7, 19, 57, 68]. Wilke and Morton [61] found climate scientists, knowing the conservative nature of producers and the political contention around climate change, try to distance their messages about climate change risk from what may be considered a political agenda in order to remain neutral and build trust. Additionally, scientists attempted to frame climate change information such that producers may perceive it as relevant and important (e.g., providing producers with risk assessments [61]). Making climate change relevant, or personal, in this case can aid in avoiding the controversies and political connotations around climate change [61], and in establishing climate scientists as credible sources for climate change information [49]. Similarly, temporal differences in immediate versus long-term climate change effects make communicating climate science a challenge because climate change effects are often not imme- diately noticeable and visible, or even geographically present [33]. Terminology use may be

particularly sensitive to different agricultural audiences. Wilke [69] suggested not using the term “global warming” with agricultural audiences, because “warming” is only one aspect of global climate change. Instead, using the holistic term “climate change” in conversations may influence audiences’ acceptance of climate science information as well as aiding in belief of anthropogenic climate change [69]. Effective communication to agricultural audiences is per- ceived to be greatly influenced by complex social factors like the political atmosphere; there- fore, some recommend keeping climate science and politics separate [61]. Disinformation campaigns like those propagated by ExxonMobil [70] and the mainstream media’s balanced presentation of perspectives from climate change scientists and climate change contrarians, allowing them equal or in some cases more air time to contrarians despite the majority of sci- entists accept climate change [32], may reinforce a belief in the uncertainty of climate change impacts causing a “wait and see” stance for many producers [71]. Methods Scientist survey Targeted participants were gathered from two sources. The first was scientists identified through a previous survey as a climate scientist that worked on a climate and agriculture- related project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) [72] (henceforth referred to as the climate portfolio; N = 301). The second was an internet search to identify government agencies that manage or

conduct work related to climate issues. The following organizations were contacted to com- plete the survey: American Association of State Climatologists (AASC), Environmental Protec- tion Agency (EPA) Agriculture Center Regional Agriculture Advisors, Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) network staff, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis- tration (NOAA) regional climate centers, USDA Climate Hubs and Forest Service of Sustain- ability and Climate Change, and United States Geological Survey (USGS) Climate Science Centers Directors. Because this survey focused on communication and outreach, all job roles were included from relevant office staff who were scientists working on different climate- related issues and/or interacting with stakeholders, through directors to research leaders PLOS ONE Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269927 August 2, 2022 5 / 22