My new Seed column, with the same title as this post, is now online. It's about how to convey the "perfect moral storm" that is the global warming problem to an American public that remains deeply confused and even ambivalent about the issue....as epitomized by NASA administrator Michael Griffith's recent bonehead statement to the effect that global warming isn't a problem. Is he trying to massively over-correct for James Hansen or something?
Prometheus has more.
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Griffin's statement is boneheaded, but it is basically Bush's position, so it is boneheaded not just because it is stupid, but because of who thought of it (which means it is stupid by definition).
Above all, Griffin works for Bush and he has undoubtedly gotten a lot of flak about Hansen. I'd bet that there is more than a little of the "I'll show Hansen who is boss" going on here -- childish, to be sure.
I once was a state climatologist (SD), I heard all of these complaints from my peers (engineers, physical scientists, agriculture scientists) all the time. I never had that problem , I think it was because I treated journalists with respect and invested my time up front to formulate a statement(s) that could be quoted or used in a TV clip. It really helps if the intended audiences believes they could have said what they hear from the person who is saying it. Most of my peers would object by saying it was too complicated to put in those terms. My response was, "you have not thought carefully enough about your knowledge if you cannot express it in the imagery of the common person on the street." It is still true.