There's an ongoing dispute about how to present science to the general public. People like Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney advocate framing—another word for spin—in order to appeal to the public's perceived biases. They seem to be comfortable with a little "lying for science" as long as it serves the greater good. Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney are experts at recognizing that greater good even when others can't see it.
Many scientists—I am one— believe that scientists have to tell the truth no matter how much it might confuse the general public. We believe that evidence-based conclusions are the one thing that separates science from pseudoscience and scientists should never compromise the truth.
Here's an example of how climate change should be presented. It's from an editorial in the Dec. 6 issue of New Scientist [It's the Carbon Stupid].
It's time for heretical thinking on climate change. After two decades in which science has told us more and more about global warming, climate modellers may have to recognise that we have learned most of what we can from their number-crunching.The point of this editorial is that there's no reason to be overly alarmist and there's no reason why we can't admit that our climate models are flawed. The bottom line is that we know the climate is warming and we know that we are contributing to the cause. It's time to do something.
Some of the detailed forecasts about exactly what the climate will be like in Albuquerque or Basingstoke in 2050 or 2080 are little more than statistical noise, as physicist Lenny Smith underlines this week (see "Bad climate science"). Even the global picture may depend more than we like to admit on feedbacks and tipping points produced by a system that is inherently chaotic. We need to beware of the known unknowns and - whisper it - the unknown unknowns.
Some politicians still demand certainty from climate scientists and are sitting on their hands until they get it. But certainty may be no more available here than in that other troublesome discipline, economics. This is not a counsel for inaction, but for grown-up government: for doing what we know is needed in the face of uncertainty, and for taking actions like those called for this week by the British government's Committee on Climate Change, from decarbonising electricity generation to culling carbon-spewing vehicles and aircraft.
Here's another heresy. Perhaps the endless negotiations to frame a successor to the Kyoto protocol - currently in mid-grind in Poznan, Poland - are becoming an impediment to action. The protocol's various market devices, like cap-and-trade and the clean development mechanism, could now be holding up the technologies we know will do the job. Invented by the Clinton/Gore administration, should they now be jettisoned by Barack Obama? Michael Le Page believes so (see "Time for change on climate: an open letter to Barack Obama") and argues that taxing carbon would be a better plan. It would be a bold move. But just as past economic certainties are failing, maybe it is time to think the unthinkable here too.
The contrasting approach to communicating science is wonderfully described by Matt Nisbet on his blog. Today's posting talks about America's Top Climate Communicator. Matt is not happy with the choices being offered. He proposes his own choice for top climate communicator: the Reverend Richard Cizik, VP for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals.
To back up his nomination Matt quotes from a recent interview ...
GROSS: I imagine you didn't agree with Sarah Palin on environmental issues. For example, her emphasis on drill, baby, drill, and also the fact that she said she wasn't sure if human behavior contributed to climate change. Now, climate change and the environment are issues you're trying to put much more toward the top of the evangelical agenda.If I have to choose between the New Scientist editorial and Rev. Cizik then New Scientist wins hands down.
REV. CIZIK: Yeah, I couldn't - you're right. I couldn't have disagreed with her more. Just a year ago, we found out from climate scientists that the melt in the Arctic had turned into a rout. It was happening so fast it was as if your hair turned gray overnight. Now, I have a receding hairline, but I don't have my hair turning gray overnight. Well, that's what happened with the environment. An area the size of Colorado was disappearing every week, and the Northwest Passage was staying wide open all September for the first time in history. And so, to look at this and not see what's happening, I think is, well, it was sort of the ignorance is strength idea. Well, not. It's not strength. Look, strength is knowing what's happening to the world around us, and moreover, as a Christian, we can't claim to love the Creator and abuse the world in which we live. To do so is like claiming to be a fan of Shakespeare and then burn his plays....
...I'm always looking for ways to reframe issues, give the biblical point of view a different slant, if you will, and look it - we have to. The whole world, literally, the planet, is changing around us. And if you don't change the way you think and adapt, especially to things like climate change, scientists like Bob Doppelt, he says, well, if you don't adapt and change your thinking, you may ultimately be a loser because climate change, in his mind, he is a systems analyst, has the capacity to determine the winners and losers, and your life will never be the same, growing up during, I say, the great warming. Our grandparents grew up during the Great Depression. Our parents, well, they lived in the aftermath of that and became probably, the most, well, the greediest generation and our generation, this younger one, needs to be the greenest....
What do you think? Is Rev. Cizik going to convince you that he understands the science behind climate change?1
1. The area of Colorado is 269,837 km2 and the area of the entire Arctic ocean is 14,056,000 km2, which 52× the area of Colorado.
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