Beware the Unknown: Views on Genetic Technology in Conservation.

Artificial Gene Drive (GD) may offer a number of transformative impacts on society. Despite potential usage in the area of conservation, GD remains largely unfamiliar to the public and little is known about their views. In our study, participants from New Zealand were placed in groups based upon one of four worldviews. They had a brief free word association session before considering a concise, technical definition of GD and were asked to discuss their views. Overall, discussions made use of narrative devices that expressed caution and concern around large-scale technological intervention with the natural world. However, specific worldviews presented unique themes. While fears of human overstep causing uncontrollable feedback across wild species and environments were universally present, this differed according to the group's worldview. We conclude that conversations on such technologies, especially those relating to gene modification, provide insight into deep-rooted social, cultural and even metaphysical concerns that transcend the technology's stated purpose.

The disengaged in science communication: How not to count audiences and publics.

In this article, we suggest that three concepts from cultural and media studies might be useful for analysing the ways audiences are constructed in science communication: that media are immanent to society, media are multiple and various, and audiences are active. This article uses those concepts, along with insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), to examine the category of 'the disengaged' within science communication. This article deals with the contrast between 'common sense' and scholarly ideas of media and audiences in the field of cultural and media studies. It compares the 'common sense' with scholarly ideas of science publics from STS. We conclude that it may be time to reconsider the ontology of publics and the disengaged for science communication.

Fairness in Knowing: Science Communication and Epistemic Justice.

Science communication, as a field and as a practice, is fundamentally about knowledge distribution; it is about the access to, and the sharing of knowledge. All distribution (science communication included) brings with it issues of ethics and justice. Indeed, whether science communicators acknowledge it or not, they get to decide both which knowledge is shared (by choosing which topic is communicated), and who gets access to this knowledge (by choosing which audience it is presented to). As a result, the decisions of science communicators have important implications for epistemic justice: how knowledge is distributed fairly and equitably. This paper presents an overview of issues related to epistemic justice for science communication, and argues that there are two quite distinct ways in which science communicators can be just (or unjust) in the way they distribute knowledge. Both of these paths will be considered before concluding that, at least on one of these accounts, science communication as a field and as a practice is fundamentally epistemically unjust. Possible ways to redress this injustice are suggested.

Examining the role of carbon capture and storage through an ethical lens.

The risk posed by anthropogenic climate change is generally accepted, and the challenge we face to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a tolerable limit cannot be underestimated. Reducing GHG emissions can be achieved either by producing less GHG to begin with or by emitting less GHG into the atmosphere. One carbon mitigation technology with large potential for capturing carbon dioxide at the point source of emissions is carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, the merits of CCS have been questioned, both on practical and ethical grounds. While the practical concerns have already received substantial attention, the ethical concerns still demand further consideration. This article aims to respond to this deficit by reviewing the critical ethical challenges raised by CCS as a possible tool in a climate mitigation strategy and argues that the urgency stemming from climate change underpins many of the concerns raised by CCS.