Science, story, and image: a new approach to crossing the communication barrier posed by scientific jargon

The Kyoto Protocol has forced governments and power utilities to consider u sing renewable energy sources. Since these changes have political, social, and environmental consequences, it is important to understand non-scientist s' perceptions of the problem and possible solutions. The authors have deve loped a way of overcoming barriers to communication posed by technical lang uage, using images as a focus for the discussion of issues that participant s associate with our current use of energy and its possible future uses. Pa rticipants select images, describe the significance of these images, and te ll their own story of renewable energy. Further exploration is carried out through the use of follow-up interviews. This way of working has demonstrat ed its effectiveness by revealing an interesting diversity and depth in par ticipants' understanding of renewable energy. In particular, it has reveale d the complex way in which participants move between the human, technologic al, ethical, social, emotional, and spiritual aspects of energy.