WCS 3-Sentence Science

Climate Action Needs More Citizen Social Scientists

December 26, 2019

CREDIT: CHRYSTAL MANTYKA-PRINGLE

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS Canada’s Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle on the use of citizen science to confront climate change.

1. Researchers propose elevating Citizen Social Science (CSS) to a new level across governments as an advanced collaborative approach of accelerating climate action and policies.
2. Moving beyond the traditional science-policy model of the democratization of science in enabling more inclusive climate policy change, authors present examples of how CSS can potentially transform citizen behavior and enable citizens to become key agents in driving climate policy change.
3. They also discuss the barriers that could impede the implementation of CSS and offer solutions to these, and they articulate the implications of increased citizen action.

Study and Journal: “Citizen social science for more integrative and effective climate action: A science-policy perspective” from Frontiers in Environmental Science
WCS Co-Author(s): Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle, WCS Canada

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.