Ten climate scientists who disagree about the linkages between global warming and more intense hurricanes have released a joint statement warning that regardless of the resolution of the scientific debate, hurricanes remain a serious threat, and that policymakers need to rethink coastal development. On Tuesday, Andrew Revkin of the NY Times contributed this story on the announcement.
The joint statement is a leading example of how scientists can work with journalists to "negotiate" news about the policy relevance of science. It's a shift in thinking about public communication that is sorely needed.
I base my conclusion on the academic research I have been doing tracking quantitative trends in news coverage of science controversies. In this research, I follow how the image and level of attention to an issue shifts across news beats. This shift across news beats is often triggered by a shift in the type of policy arena where debate takes place, from regulatory and administrative arenas to overtly-political contexts like the WH and Congress.
As an average tendency across coverage, science writers focus on the release of a new scientific study or pause at times to write a more thematic technical backgrounder for readers. Sometimes science writers have the time and space to write about the policy angles, but for the most part, science journalism is dominated by these two types of stories.
The scientific community makes it easy for science writers, since a whole industry is built around trying to get news attention to a particular institution's or journal's latest study. And at the same time, scientists either lack the training, time, and motivation to project their findings towards policy problems.
But the tendency to define "what's news in science" as what is the latest study in the issue of Science or Nature leads to problems. What is often lost is forward looking coverage that starts to shine a light on what can be done about an emerging problem like hurricanes.
Political reporters are often thought of as the news beat where policy is supposed to be covered, but as an average trend this seldom happens. Instead, political reporters only start focusing on a policy problem usually when it comes on to the agenda of Congress or the White House. Instead of a thematic policy focus, political reporters too often focus on the "political game," who's ahead and who's behind in winning the policy battle, and which personalities are involved. If policy is backgrounded, it usually is bifurcated into a Dems vs. Republican policy discussion.
On the opinion pages, sometimes a broader range of policy options are raised, especially when an expert writes in with an op-ed, but with the rare exception of only a handful of the top columnists, policy discussion is usually once again boiled down to a Dems vs. GOP focus.
Scientists and their organizations need to rethink how they define what is newsworthy for journalists. The recent statement on hurricanes and coastal development is one such strategy. It's appearance in the agenda-setting pages of the NY Times is a good start. However, a quick Lexis search shows that the rest of the media has yet to cover the announcement.
Comments on these ideas are definitely welcome.
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Many scientists have always been stuck in a catch-22. Publicize your work and ideas, and you risk losing objectivity or credibility. Don't do it, and the work remains in the academic vacuum. The key is finding that balance.
The hurricane researchers took the right approach. Release a simple and direct statement to re-orient the public discourse, which had drifted towards an obsession with global warming and hurricanes with not enough focus on burgeoning coastal development. Last week's op-ed piece in the NY Times by Peter Doran (about the misuse of findings on Antarctic temperature trends) shows what can happen when the discourse on an issue is not controlled by scientists.
One thing that scientists not accustomed to the public eye can do is be proactive and take advantage of the media officers at their university or institution, who have experience in spreading news about important findings to interested media outlets. Otherwise, the science news will be dominated only by what is published in Science, Nature and the other few journals that distribute press releases to the major news organizations, much like how the national news can be dominated at times by what is presented at a white house press briefing.
After mentioning the link to surface rematerialing and alteration to the patterning of Turbulence (and thus 'weather') it is good for finally this to be realised.
The issue for 'climate science' on the whole is that it is based in advocacy and Political process and has, in reality, a paucity of validity in the platformed 'basis of science'. The over-play of contrived and fabricated scenario in Movie and Book with only otherwise attempts to platform scenario for remote pasts does NOT show any link to NOW that CAN be made validly with ANY pre-emptive ability at all.
Parading 'talking heads' constantly proclaiming 'doom and woe' is NOT 'winning public interest', in fact after 20 years it is becoming tiresome in its continuance.
The recent repeat of 'court action' in California is seen at a time when power blackouts are more and more common, an issue also in the Australian State of NSW where 'policy advisors' seem more intent on reading novels than noticing realty. This regularly appears when the 'greenhouse platform' and its 'hangers on' find themselves facing enquiry regarding the noticed lack of performance of their 'opinion' in expressions involving REALITY. The jesting concerning the situation the Governor of California is facing involves the reintroduction of STEAM power, whilst the NSW Government has recently revised its attitude towards reconditioned Steam Locomotives presently on lease to 'interest/rejuvenate' groups. Due to the policy similarities tween California and NSW, it makes me wonder.
The NSW Government has acted to limit compensation to homeowners to $80 IF a 'blackout' lasts for more than 5 hours, it would be BETTER policy to produce ENOUGH Electricity, rather than attempt to flip through that novel looking for the "Climate Guru's Idea". With a small Gas utility producing around 300 Megawatt, a small Coal fuelled Turbine producing around 600 Megawatt, the 15 Megawatt from TWO Wind farms in NSW is rather a 'stark pointer' to rhetoric NOT being a good producer of ELECTRICITY..
Nor is rhetoric going to 'protect' New Orleans, for example, sitting mostly below relative sea level is the Cities environs are.
Your's,
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com