Communication, Policy, and Climate Change

Despite controversy, scientists should not be discouraged on principle to enter the public debate on policy issues (climate change in my case) either as scientist-advocates or as scientist- popularizers.  If we do not enter the debates, then popularization of complex issues will occur without our direct input and will likely be more inaccurate.  What about advocacy? Because I have a Ph.D. is not a reason to “hang up my citizenship at the door” of a public meeting—we too are entitled to personal opinions.  But, we also have a special obligation to make our value judgments explicit and to separate them explicitly from the scientific assessment process.  It is then the role of the scientist-popularizer to propagate and promote these scientific assessments in an understandable manner in the public realm so that the scientific community's findings and the scientist's ideas are heard and his/her suggestions are available. An effective scientist-popularizer must balance the need to be heard (good sound bites) with the responsibility to be honest (all the caveats).  We must be both honest and effective—but this is never fully possible in the world of 20 second sound-bites. So the use of metaphors that convey both urgency and uncertainty are necessary.  So too is a hierarchy of back up products.  These include op-eds, Scientific  American-style articles and full length popular books.  The key: full separation of scientific risks (probabilities of various consequences) from personal value judgment on what to do about such risks.