nisbetmc | April 5, 2010
Last week I called attention to the emerging "science audit" movement, a network of engaged citizens who combine their own professional expertise with online communication strategies to demand a greater level of transparency in scientific research and data.
Most prominent on climate change, this movement is likely to grow to include any issue where scientific evidence is claimed as the central criteria driving policy decision-making. Demands for a second-level of inclusive and participatory review of research in areas ranging from nanotechnology to biomedical research to vaccine safety…
nisbetmc | March 31, 2010
This year the School of Communication at American University has hired leading junior faculty in the areas of science journalism and risk communication. The two new faculty, scheduled to move to Washington, DC in August, will contribute significantly to SOC's research capacity, professional initiatives, and teaching portfolio. Below with their permission, I have posted brief bios.
DECLAN FAHY
Declan Fahy joins the journalism faculty as a tenure-track assistant professor. He has reported extensively on science, health, and environmental issues, as well as many other topics, for the Irish…
nisbetmc | March 30, 2010Last month, Judith Curry had an important essay at Physics Today that deserves more attention than it has received.
Curry argues that unlike the industry-funded climate skeptic movement of the past, contemporary debate is driven by a new generation of blog-based "climate auditors" who merge their own professional expertise with online communication strategies to demand a greater level of transparency in climate science. Here's how Curry describes the movement:
So who are the climate auditors? They are technically educated people, mostly outside of academia. Several individuals have…
nisbetmc | March 24, 2010Not unexpectedly, the Slate article last week generated a range of reactions at blogs, on twitter, and in personal emails that I received. This topic is not going away and as I have more time over the coming weeks I will be returning to it.
Below is a brief run down of reactions.
Michael Zimmerman, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center on Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado, in an email posted with his permission:
The sharp Republican-Democrat polarization in climate and in much of the country in general demands efforts to "transcend the ideological divide,"…
nisbetmc | March 22, 2010
Last week I did an extended Q & A interview with Grist magazine about strategies for connecting climate change to the ongoing health care debate. Below is just one of several exchanges likely of interest to readers. My views are informed in part by research I am currently doing in collaboration with Edward Maibach at George Mason University and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Policy Investigators' program.
The one thing that I would add to the transcript featured is that any communication about the health impacts of climate change needs to be consistent with the…
nisbetmc | March 18, 2010
I have an article at Slate magazine today that ties together and elaborates on some of the themes explored at this blog over the past several weeks. Below is the lede to the full article. No doubt, the article will generate a good amount of discussion which I will highlight in follow up posts. I will also highlight specific comments made over at Slate.
Chill Out: Climate scientists are getting a little too angry for their own good.
By Matthew C. Nisbet
As Congress continues to struggle its way toward new energy legislation, climate scientists are getting a little hot. A series of major…
nisbetmc | March 13, 2010
At a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday, Stanford University communication professor Jon Krosnick presented the best analysis to date estimating the impact of "ClimateGate" on public perceptions of climate change and of climate scientists. Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment, where Krosnick is a faculty fellow, has put together a detailed news release on Krosnick's survey analysis. Also above is a YouTube clip of Krosnick explaining the research.
The full report should be read, but below I feature several key conclusions. Despite alarm over the presumed impact of ClimateGate,…
nisbetmc | March 11, 2010Daniel Sarewitz, professor of science policy at Arizona State University, has an important op-ed at Slate today explaining why if we continue to frame the climate change debate in terms of science, we may never achieve meaningful policy action. Drawing on the conclusions of much of the scholarship in the area of science studies, Sarewitz writes:
When people hold strongly conflicting values, interests, and beliefs, there is not much that science can do to compel action. Indeed, more research and more facts often make a conflict worse by providing support to competing sides in the debate, and…
nisbetmc | March 9, 2010
American Today, the weekly newspaper for American University, ran this feature on last week's AU Forum and public radio broadcast of "The Climate Change Generation: Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World." My graduate assistant Brandee Reed has also produced a transcript of the panel which I have pasted below the fold.
I was joined on the panel by AU journalism professor Jane Hall who served as moderator, and fellow panelists Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones magazine. The transcript is not quite professional quality, but it does provide…
nisbetmc | March 8, 2010At NewYorkTimes.com, Alex Kaplun of Greenwire reports on emails exchanged among several prominent climate scientists regarding possible plans to fight back against the "neo-McCarthyism" of political leaders such as James Inhofe.
The anger on the part of several scientists that is revealed in the emails is understandable. These scientists, members of the National Academies, have been personally attacked by commentators and threatened with legal action by Inhofe.
I have a great deal of respect for many of the scientists mentioned in the article. However, I side with the warnings offered by…
nisbetmc | March 5, 2010Dan Vergano of USA Today has an important column out this weekend. Vergano, I believe, is the first major journalist to call into question the now dominant narrative that "ClimateGate" has powerfully damaged public trust in scientists.
In the column, he quotes Stanford professor Jon Krosnick with the following apt observation. As Vergano writes:
What's really happening, suggests polling expert Jon Krosnick of Stanford University, is "scientists are over-reacting. It's another funny instance of scientists ignoring science."
The science that Krosnick is referring to are the multiple polling…
nisbetmc | March 5, 2010
Chris Palmer, director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University, argues in an op-ed at CNN.com that the tragic accident at SeaWorld Orlando should draw renewed attention to the ethics and safety of keeping Orcas as captive performing animals for spectators. As Palmer, a veteran of more than 25 years of wildlife filmmaking, writes:
Orcas and other large predators should not be held in captivity unless those doing so can make an overpoweringly persuasive case for it -- mainly that the animal's release into the wild, perhaps after an injury, will mean certain,…
nisbetmc | March 4, 2010Readers in Washington, DC will find this event, open to the public, of strong interest:
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Meteorological Society (AMS), and the American Statistical Association (ASA), present:
Climate Policy: Public Perception, Science, and the Political Landscape
Friday, March 12, 2010
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Hart Senate Office Building, Room 902
United States Senate
Washington, DC
*To learn more about this event, please visit www.ametsoc.org/cb*
**This event is part of the AMS Climate Briefing Series, which is made possible, in part,…
nisbetmc | March 4, 2010At the blog "Global Change: Intersection of Nature and Culture," Phil Camil has an excellent overview and synthesis of research on some of the communication barriers to action on climate change and the strategies for overcoming those barriers. Camil is associate professor and director of the Environmental Studies program at Bowdoin College in Maine.
At the post there are also links to other analyses by Camill on the problem of environmental literacy and engagement generally.
nisbetmc | March 4, 2010That's the question raised in an American Observer article about this week's AU Forum held on the "Climate Change Generation? Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World." The Observer is the digital news site run by graduate students in journalism at American University. Here's how reporter Kristen Becker described the issue with reactions from students, Forum moderator Jane Hall, and panelists Juliet Eilperin and Kate Sheppard:
Although a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found the number of Americans who believe climate change is occurring has dropped from 80 percent to 72…
nisbetmc | March 3, 2010
Graham, Kerry, Lieberman, and Gore all share the same goal but are moving to differentiate themselves as a way to claim credit for climate action and to appeal to different audience segments.
At The NYTimes.com, Greewire's Darren Samuelsohn examines Senator Lindsey Graham's strategy to define cap and trade legislation as "dead." The Senator's declaration has been most notably quoted in a January article at the New York Times and in an article Saturday at the Washington Post, with his remarks much discussed and debated among other members of Congress, by advocates, in the blogosphere,…
nisbetmc | March 2, 2010
Americans under the age of 35 have grown up during an era of ever more certain climate science, increasing news attention, alarming entertainment portrayals, and growing environmental activism, yet on a number of key indicators, this demographic group remains less engaged on the issue than older Americans.
A survey report released today challenges conventional wisdom that younger Americans as a group are more concerned and active on the issue of climate change than their older counterparts. The analysis of nationally representative data collected in January of this year is timed for release…
nisbetmc | March 2, 2010
At last night's AU Forum on The Climate Change Generation, one of the students asked what can be done to break public indifference on the issue.
In the YouTube clip above, I answered that Obama as president needs to make climate change a leading communication priority, marshaling the power of the bully pulpit for a long term president-led engagement campaign on the issue. When and if this happens, I suggested one of the first things Obama should do is to personally host a series of Rose Garden summits with religious leaders, business leaders, public health experts, and national security…
nisbetmc | March 1, 2010
More than 200 students turned out tonight for the AU Forum on climate change and youth and approximately 700,000 audience members in the DC area listened in via the live public radio broadcast by WAMU.
There will be much more tomorrow including blog reaction, news coverage, a transcript, a podcast of the WAMU program, and the release of a new survey report on young people and climate change. But for now, you can watch archived video feed of the panel above and you can discuss the panel at the student built social media site for the event. Also check out the twitter feed and discussion.…
nisbetmc | February 28, 2010What does climate change mean to you? from Andrea Posner on Vimeo.
Students in AU Professor David Johnson's class on interactive media have created a social media and discussion site for tonight's American Forum on "The Climate Change Generation: Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World."
Features at the site include video interviews with AU students on the topic (see above), a Twitter feed that student attendees and public radio listeners will be posting to, a Facebook group, a news aggregator on climate change, and various topic driven discussion boards with topics ranging…