Should Obama Send His Science Team on a National Campaign to Explain Climate Science? (Green Barf)

treehugger.com ^ | March 12, 2010 | Brian Merchant

[Free ThinkerNY]

It's been a couple months of seriously bad PR for climate science, both due to unfortunate errors made by scientists and (okay, mostly) a well-funded noise machine intent on preserving the status quo at any cost. So how can climate scientists dig themselves out of the negative publicity trench and help reeducate the public on the dangers of climate change? The answer's not debating skeptics on TV, that's for sure. So would a full-on national media blitz by Obama's Nobel Prize winning science team--Stephen Chu and John Holdren--help do the trick?

That's what Climate Progress's Joe Romm suggests, after taking advice from a recent editorial in the scientific journal Nature.

Here's an excerpt from the Nature article entitled Climate of Fear:

The integrity of climate research has taken a very public battering in recent months. Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight.

Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.

And all that is exactly why it's all but futile for a climate scientist to go on TV to attempt to refute anti-science misinformation. So what to do? Scientists, who were never trained for and therefore aren't particularly adept at "street fights" aren't the ideal candidates to get in the ring.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"Should Obama Send His Science Team on a National Campaign to Explain Climate Science?"

Way to recycle those white lab coats!!!

[Caipirabob]

Sure, there’s got to be something we could do with this surplus tar and feathers...

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[SteamShovel]

Should Obama Send His Science Team on a National Campaign to Explain Climate Science

Good idea, the lectures will end up just like the "town hall meetings" the congress critters were having last summer.....

.....At least it would give us another chance to push them back on their heels.

What is it about the Obama team?.....

.....They assert something that causes a huge negative public reaction

.....They conclude they need to push harder and "Kommunicate more effectively"

.....The public reacts as strongly or more strongly in the negative

.....Obama pushes even harder...

We are in a political climate where the feed forward signal has the wrong sign while the feedback has the correct sign. The system is doomed to spiral out of control.