ID: 1963
Presenting Author: Steve Green
Session: 526 - The Truth Tangle: Untying Misinformation in Impact Assessment
Status: pending
This case study will demonstrate how good science and clear, credible, and accessible communication is essential for maintaining public confidence and enabling sound environmental decision-making.
Effective communication is central to ensuring environmental impact assessments are both scientifically robust and socially legitimate. When science is poorly done and/ or poorly conveyed, misinformation can distort public perception and corrupt the assessment process. This presentation, using a recent case study of a proposed rocket launch facility, will examine how communication strategies can influence stakeholder understanding and participation. In this instance, inaccurate science and misleading communication led to incorrect public claims. This, in turn, led to government decision makers believing that launch noise would cause permanent hearing loss in an endangered bird species, resulting in population decline and ultimate sub-species extinction. More thorough scientific research, however, uncovered that short-duration rocket noise posed no risk of permanent auditory damage or population-level impact. Digital storytelling—specifically, an animation illustrating sound propagation and intensity across population distribution—proved far more effective than static contour maps and fact sheets in conveying the true scale and significance of impacts. The case study will demonstrate how clear, credible, and accessible communication is essential for maintaining public confidence and enabling sound environmental decision-making.
Steve has over 30 years’ experience as a leader and an innovative thinker. He is a recognised expert in project leadership, environmental management, and stakeholder engagement.
Coauthor 1: Lachlan Wilkinson