This piece will be part of a regular blog from Future Earth Communications Director Alistair Scrutton on issues of communicating science. The blog does not represent the views of Future Earth.

If the overarching goal of climate communication for the last few decades has been to raise awareness of our damaging dependency on fossil fuels, in a sense that battle has been won. While there may be large and powerful sections still in denial of its seriousness — like an influential section of US voters — for the most part, polls show that the world’s inhabitants know what is happening, and why.

Hence the Extinction Rebellion in the UK, the rise of the environmental issues into Germany’s political mainstream, and the Green New Deal drawn up by U.S. legislators. There is an increasing mass movement of people who are pushing individuals and governments to act on climate change.

But the next stage in terms of science communication may be even more fraught than decades of raising this awareness. Or – as Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin put the quandary more than a century ago in a famous pamphlet – “What Is to Be Done?”

A good example of this dilemma is the message that we have 12 years to act or face planetary catastrophe. The message originates from the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which says we only have until 2030 to keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.

That slogan is now leveraged by activists and politicians. It has been used by the likes of Extinction Rebellion and Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg. As US lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”

But this slogan has already seen fissures between scientists and the broader environmental movement.

A piece in July in Scientific American argues that the 12 year timeframe both scares people to the point of feeling powerless, and creates an artificial framework that climate sceptics will soon use to challenge the science if we get near to 2030 safe (ish) and sound.

These concerns were echoed by Oxford University professor and an IPCC lead author Myles Allen on  the 1.5 degrees report, who wrote:

“Please stop saying something globally bad is going to happen in 2030. Bad stuff is already happening and every half a degree of warming matters, but the IPCC does not draw a “planetary boundary” at 1.5°C beyond which lie climate dragons.”

The increasing urgency of the question “What Is To Be Done?” will undoubtedly mean scientists are drawn into controversy. How simple or nuanced should scientific messages be given the urgency for change? Take the “Don’t Fly” campaign. It is simple to understand and act on — hence the flight shaming movement in Sweden — and it appeals to many as frequent fliers tend to also be from privileged classes (and professions).

But is it the most effective use of scientific knowledge? How impactful is it to focus on a sector that accounts for about 2 percent of global emissions rather than road transport (around 20 percent)?

Mixing “Don’t Fly” with “12 years to Doomsday” is just one example of campaigns that may mobilise, but can polarise. For scientists, how to be sceptical about campaigns and policies without being labeled a “climate sceptic” may be one of the next challenges down the road.

This piece will be part of a regular blog from Future Earth Communications Director Alistair Scrutton on issues of communicating science. The blog does not represent the views of Future Earth.