Today and tomorrow there’s a conference for “environmental communicators” taking place, at Bristol Zoo. See the website or twitter tag.

In a time of unprecedented social, economic and political change we urgently need proactive tools for successfully communicating environmental issues. Communicate goes straight to the interface and asks some difficult questions about current approaches as we explore a shifting landscape of echo-chambers, divisive opinions and fake news.

These events are always mildly amusing – for example they had a session this morning where they all sat around tables together and discussed echo chambers and how to get out of them. This afternoon they are discussing how to change peoples’ minds, while tomorrow among other things there’s a session on fake news and alternative facts, including a talk by a local expert well known for his alternative facts.

But one interesting thing I noticed was this:

Tim Silman @IpsosMORI tells @CommunicateConf that concern about climate change among general public is actually decreasing #Communicate17 pic.twitter.com/ZXgQGpJ0r5 — Greenhouse (@Greenhouse_PR) November 1, 2017

Ipsos MORI say that they’ve found a steady decline on concern about climate change since 2005, from 82% to 60%, something they describe as a “worrying trend”. I’ve found their report from 2005 giving the 82% concerned figure (44% very concerned, 38% fairly concerned), and the 2010 one with 71% concerned (28% very, 43% fairly). That drop might perhaps be attributed to climategate (2009), but the consistent downward trend might be difficult to find excuses for.