Category: IGC

A writing assignment from the IGC Seminar, by Caetano Franco

The Amazon Rainforest, the world’s largest rainforest, provides ecosystem services, stores carbon stocks, and supports biodiversity. In addition, a fifth of the world’s freshwater is located in this region. This forest is home to 34 million people, many depending entirely on the forest for their livelihoods, and also a storehouse of diseases and pathogens that could lead to another pandemic.

More than half of the Amazon Rainforest is in Brazil. Alarmingly, Brazilian rainforests are subject to rapid and considerable transformations due to agribusiness, implementation of large infrastructures such as roads and dams, mining, and above all, deforestation. These human activities have contributed to the loss of resilience of this forest.

But how is the Amazon related to One Health? For the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, One Health is “an approach that recognizes that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. One Health is not new, but it has become more important in recent years. This is because many factors have changed interactions between people, animals, plants, and our environment”. In this context, in which the Amazon is home to thousands of people, and represents a region of global importance, the exhaustive deforestation found in the biome can have consequences for different sectors of society around the world.

Recent overview of the situation in the Amazon

In Brazil, 2021 was the worst level of Amazon Rainforest deforestation in 15 years, largely driven by the growth of biofuels, initially sugar cane and more recently palm oil and corn, as well as road construction. The growth of palm oil is worrying as it is extremely harmful to tropical forests, as already observed in other regions, extensive areas of forests have been converted into areas for palm oil plantations. The reopening of the BR-319 highway is one example of increased forest loss due to roads. This highway connects the “arc of deforestation” in the state of Rondônia to Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, cutting through one of the most preserved blocks of tropical forest in the world, home to almost 18,000 indigenous people and 63 official Indigenous Lands. Soy and cattle ranching are expanding around this highway, mostly through the illegal acquisition of land from deforestation. Therefore, this highway has represented the new frontier of cheap land for the expansion of economic activities. If reopened, this road and its side roads could considerably increase the deforested area, and in some places, the landscape has already changed dramatically.

Deforestation and One Health

For researcher and ecologist Lucas Ferrante, deforestation is linked to the emergence of new diseases. According to him, “we have already observed an exponential increase in malaria in the BR-319 region due to deforestation”. However, there are other diseases of global concern. For Ferrante, “the Amazon has the largest stock of betacoronavirus in the world. It is important to mention that before SARS-CoV-2, we already had four [types of] betacoronavirus running in Brazil”. In addition, many types of betacoranavirus are still unknown, as well as large amounts of bacteria, viruses, and prions. Deforestation is altering areas with a high number of pathogens that can lead to zoonotic leaps, from animals to humans. Agribusiness is planning to implement large corn plantations in Indigenous Lands, as new commercial food production chains. These lands and people lack basic social and health assistance and low environmental control. These companies intend to create an animal feed from corn tailings and promote the confined creation of poultry and pigs within these Indigenous Lands, which are places with a high diversity of pathogens. This combination of factors and situations can generate new pandemics, as stated by the researcher. To make this situation worse, deforestation tends to accelerate global climate change and make it increasingly difficult to reach existing international agreements for this purpose.

COVID-19 pandemic, decision making and humanitarian threats

Decision makers are not paying attention in the pandemic situation, in part because of limited capacity of epidemiological alerts that exist in the Amazon region. Four months before the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state of Amazonas, a scientific alert led by Lucas Ferrante was carried out indicating the catastrophic proportions that the second wave could have. In this alert, although not heeded by decision makers, predicted what happened months later. In addition, the gamma variant (or P.1) was generated in Manaus, mainly associated with the absence of restrictive measures represented by the return of school prior to vaccination and the increase in community transmission of the virus. However, this variant was only identified when it arrived in Japan, illustrating the limited local capacity to assess the emergence of new diseases before they cross Brazilian borders. The Brazilian government, instead of prioritizing the lives of indigenous populations, has prioritized, since the beginning of the current administration in January 2019, economic growth at any cost, violating humanitarian rights. The Brazilian government’s denialism has placed the country into a global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Agents of transformation of Amazon region

Brazil has suffered a recurrent dismantling of environmental laws, which consequently has compromised ecosystem services of global importance. According to Ferrante, in Brazil there have already been “two new cycles of deforestation generated by the current government”. The current president of Brazil, whose policies tend to support landowners of large holdings and their representatives, has been implementing measures since the beginning of 2019 that directly threaten the environment and the traditional peoples of the Amazon region, as well as the global climate. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brazilian government weakened environmental protection in the country. Therefore, we have, in recent years, as the national and international capital’s greatest ally, the Brazilian government, who has acted for the transformation of the Amazon region and the threat to traditional peoples and global issues, such as health and climate.

A reflection from the IGC Seminar course, by Gabriel Borba

Achieving effective science communication is a challenge for most scientists. Yet, communication science is part of a scientist’s everyday life; thus, to be successful, scientists need to learn how to communicate effectively, from a peer-reviewed article to an elevator pitch. I invited Dr. Susan Hassol, a well-known climate change communicator, to share her experience and recommendations for effective climate change communication. As she said, she “translated Science into English”.

Many resources teach skills and ways to communicate scientific results but less often focus on how to communicate science more broadly, especially to a non-academic audience. The challenge becomes complex when the considered research topic is climate change, where disinformation campaigns and scientific jargon are common. However, there are key tools and strategies to follow to help understand your audience and how to communicate your main message. Those main aspects of effective communication are discussed in the following paragraphs. I searched for the most commonly asked questions on the Google search engine about climate change communication, and Dr. Hassol’s answers (noted in quotes) follow:

Why is effective communication important in Science?

“People are making decisions and investments now that should be informed by the best science. If those who know that science is not communicating it effectively to those who are making these decisions, or the decision-makers are not hearing it (due to their own ideological or other filters that prevent their accepting the information), the decisions will be hampered by ignorance.”

How do we communicate Science?

“In plain language, in ways that connect with people on issues, they care about. Simple, clear messages, often repeated, by various trusted sources, such as Edward Maibach (Director of Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, says.”

What are some examples of effective communication?

“An example of effective communication is when you talk in clear and simple terms. An example of effective communication is when the person whom you are talking to listens actively, absorbs your point and understands it.

For example, TV weathercasters are trusted sources to local communities; people trust them about how the weather will be. Science communicators are engaged to help them integrate climate change into their weather reporting because they are trusted sources (more information).”

How can we best deal with and avoid disinformation campaigns and fake news?

“Nowadays, the war against disinformation campaigns and fake news has changed. And, as part of the problem, there are denial, disinformation, deflection, division and doomism. For example, the fossil fuel industry focuses on saying that climate change needs to be solved by individual actions. Denial – solution actually can solve the problem. Deflecting – the fossil fuel industry blames ourselves. Division – fossil fuel industry tries to divide the climate movements by having them flights among themselves. Doomism – people are convinced that there is not we can do about it.”

“We can deal with and avoid disinformation campaigns and fake news by talking about it, listening, connecting on values, build trust. Focus on solutions that all of us can agree with it. Explain the choice we face, explaining both urgency and agency of action.”

Overview of Science Communication Tips and Strategies

Good conversation is a conversation, not a lecture. One of the most important things to do is listen. What do people care about? Based on that, you may find common ground, establish trust, and make personal connections with them. For example, during an interview, you get an opportunity to develop a history. You give the reporters more information and help them to see the topic you are discussing in a more scientifically accurate way.

For effective messaging, it is necessary to be clear, concise, and compelling. Also, brevity, a short sound bite. Focusing on what you know about the topic is the most effective way to lead with what is happening. The more you say, the fewer people will hear, be objective and use simple speech. Be creative, use imagery and storytelling, and explore anecdotes. Make sure that you deliver your key message many ways and many times. Simple and repeated messages by trusted sources can be very effective. Be prepared to speak about research findings, considering what is novel and important to know about your findings.

Based on all of the information discussed above, effectively communicating about climate change or any other research topic remains a challenging skill to develop. However, recognizing the importance of communicating results from our research to a broad audience is critical to building a greater public understanding of science. We need to connect with our audience on the basis of their values and things that are most important to them in life. Following these approaches, I believe that we, as academics, will have a real chance to reach a wider audience with science. Effective scientific communication ensures that people understand science and can contribute and be connected to it.

[hr]Additional resources:

• Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425710/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK425710.pdf

• Climate Communication is non-profit Science and operates as a project of the Aspen Global Change Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the scientific understanding of Earth systems and global environmental change.

https://climatecommunication.org/

• TEDx Climate Talk: Science and Solutions by Susan Hassol

• Susan Hassol website page

https://climatecommunication.org/resources/#articles

• Susan Hassol “guick facts” page

https://www.sciline.org/resource-list/climate-communication/

• The New Climate War book by Michael Mann

https://michaelmann.net/books/climate-war

• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die book by Chip & Dan Heath

https://heathbrothers.com/books/made-to-stick/