big finish
Glenn Hampson
Hi Matt,
A few of us have been continuing this thread on rscomm list, but I wanted to share this thought with you here as kind of a summary for me since I promised Monday as a stopping point. I’m having a hard time keeping track of reality here---some of these perspectives make my head spin. They aren’t wrong, just different. They do seem to follow a polarized pattern, though, of throwing the baby out with the bathwater: some science is flawed and therefore all science is flawed; some facts are unsettled so all facts are unsettled; some policy proposals are too draconian so all policy proposals are too draconian. And importantly, this perspective works both ways: some skeptics are nuts so all skeptics are nuts.
So, I’ve tried to map out this issue space, and the perspectives I’ve heard here, on the rscomm list, and off-list seem to fall into three main categories: true believers, ardent skeptics, and the curious middle. It’s this latter group that I think deserves the real attention. They’re the ones who are still wrestling with this issue and upon whom the responsibility of acting or not acting rests, because they are the intellectual tether for the ardent skeptics. This curious middle group seems to be comprised of maybe at least five distinct subgroups:
- POLICY SKEPTICS: The science is probably firm enough to act upon. What actions to take, though, remain an important question.
- SCIENCE SKEPTICS: The current science isn’t correct for whatever reason---paradigm capture, internal bias, etc. We don’t have the right science yet to develop policy action, so we should err on the side of opposing any policy action at this juncture.
- WAIT & SEE: The science is inconclusive---we shouldn’t do anything yet
- BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY: The science is inconclusive but if we’re wrong, we’re screwed. Therefore, we should at least start thinking in terms of what we’re going to do.
- WHAT, ME WORRY?: The science is inconclusive, the situation is not dire, and doing anything is a waste of time and money, so it’s best to actively oppose policy efforts.
Does this look about right to you?
I think it’s important to make these distinctions because each of these middle groups has unique and valid viewpoints, be they grounded in concerns about the conduct of science, the firmness of facts on this issue, the formulation of policy, or in rarer cases (at least on this list) an understanding of the science itself. Discussing the perspectives of each of these groups---but particularly within the context of climate science---might be an interesting way forward.
But alas, we can’t do this here 😊. I don’t even know if we can do this on the rscomm list. Email isn’t a good tool for complicated conversations, and listservs are self-limiting---you often only hear from the extremes, while the middle gets swamped with emails and/or really doesn’t (justifiably) want to paint a target on their back (or their institution’s back). We’re launching the RSComm website within the next few months. Maybe we’ll set up a corner of this site just for this topic. Who knows---maybe even a conference….
Submitted for what it’s worth.
Best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
From: Science of Science Policy Listserv [mailto:SCI...@LISTSERV.NSF.GOV] On Behalf Of Matthew Shapiro
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2018 1:24 PM
To: SCI...@LISTSERV.NSF.GOV
Subject: Re: [scisip] climate change communication resources
David
I’m not comfortable with your descriptions of the centers at Yale, George Mason, NOAA, etc. I have been deep in the research coming out of those places for the last few years, and it has been instrumental in our understanding about how communications are generated, how they are disseminated, and how people receive them. I’m even more uncomfortable when these critiques about communications research come from individuals closely affiliated with places like the Heartland Institute, where the public messages are like this:
Matt
On Feb 18, 2018, at 7:35 AM, David Wojick <dwo...@CRAIGELLACHIE.US> wrote:
Matt, the list of mine below is of educational resources, not research. It is certainly advocacy since it all promotes a specific position in a contentious policy debate, namely that there is a serious threat of dangerous human caused climate change. The communication centers that Glenn posted also clearly exhibit the same sort of advocacy, even in their mission statements.
The research issue is rather different. Here we find what I call paradigm protection, where the research is focused on elaborating the "consensus" hypothesis, not on questioning it.
Here are two pieces of mine that are relevant.
Measuring bias in the U.S. federally-funded climate research
Posted on August 23, 2016 | 655 Comments
by David Wojick
"Semantic analysis of U.S. Federal budget documents indicates that the climate science research budget is heavily biased in favor of the paradigm of human-induced climate change. For decades climate research has been dominated by a paradigm that posits dangerous, human-induced global warming. This concept is usually referred to as “anthropogenic global warming” or simply AGW. The competing paradigm, which posits the possible attribution of significant natural variability, is barely mentioned. We call this bias “paradigm protection.”"
Refocusing the USGCRP
Posted on August 29, 2016 | 371 Comments
by David Wojick
"Our goal here is to begin to articulate a research program into the role of recent long-term natural variability in climate change. Long-term natural variability has implications for the modeling of future climate changes, on the scale of decades to centuries. It is called dec-cen variability. Dec-cen variability also relates to explaining the climate changes that have occurred over the last century or so. This is what is called the attribution problem; that is, how much of these historical changes are attributable to human activity, versus natural variability?"
As for the social sciences, most studies that I have seen assume that the controversial "consensus" view is correct. They then seek to explain skepticism as some sort of aberration. But if the premise is false then the research is wrong headed. What we have is actually a genuine debate.
David
On Feb 17, 2018, at 2:20 PM, Matthew Shapiro <msha...@IIT.EDU> wrote:I’m sorry, David, but are you saying that the research centers at George Mason, Yale, NOAA, etc. are advocacy organizations? (Am I looking at the wrong list?) If you are, you have just redefined “social science” and “science” as “advocacy”.
Matt
On Feb 17, 2018, at 1:00 PM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@NATIONALSCIENCE.ORG> wrote:This is a really great list. Thanks David! I’m pasting it below:
- Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN): http://cleanet.org/
- US Global Change Research Program "Resources for Educators”: http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/educators
- NOAA's "Teaching Climate”: https://www.climate.gov/teaching
- "Going Green! - Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World" is funded by NSF: https://msosw.wikispaces.com/
- NASA's "Global Climate Change - Vital Signs of the Planet": https://climate.nasa.gov/resources/education/
- The National Ocean Service's "Talking to Children about Climate Change”: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/climate-stewards/talking-about.html
- "Teaching about Climate Change" from Carlton College, sponsored by NSF: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/climatechange/index.html
- "Climate Change Live" with many federal "partners”: https://climatechangelive.org/index.php
- NASA's "Climate Kids”: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/menu/teach/
- "Climate Change Activities" from UCAR, sponsored by NSF: https://scied.ucar.edu/climate-change-activities
- "Climate and Global Change" by the National Earth Science Teachers Association, sponsored by NASA and NOAA: http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/climate.html
- "Climate Change Education" by Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, funded by NASA: https://pangea.stanford.edu/programs/outreach/climatechange/
- "Climate Change" from AAAS, sponsored by NSF: http://sciencenetlinks.com/collections/climate-change/
- "TEACHER RESOURCES" from the Alliance for Climate Education, includes OSTP, NOAA and EPA as "Partners”: https://acespace.org/teachers/resources
- "Climate Change and Human Health Lesson Plans" by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/scied/teachers/cchh/
- "Climate Change 101" (video) with Bill Nye | National Geographic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtW2rrLHs08
- "There is no Planet B" by Teach Climate Change: http://teachclimatechange.org/
- "Classroom Resources" from the National Center for Science Education: https://ncse.com/classroom-resources
- "Climate Science Resources" from the National Science Teachers Association: http://www.nsta.org/climate/
- "Climate Change" from Practical Action: https://practicalaction.org/climate-change-resources
- "Climate Change Resources" from the National Wildlife Federation: https://www.nwf.org/Eco-Schools-USA/Become-an-Eco-School/Pathways/Climate-Change/Resources.aspx
- "Cornell Climate Change" from Cornell (sponsors unknown): http://climatechange.cornell.edu/tools-resources/youth-education/
- "Teaching About Climate Change With The New York Times" by The Learning Network: https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/teaching-about-climate-change-with-the-new-york-times/comment-page-1/?_r=0
- "Climate Change - Student Resources" from Lehigh University's Environmental Initiative: http://www.ei.lehigh.edu/learners/cc/
- "Climate Change Education: Essential Information for Educators" from the National Education Association: http://www.nea.org/home/65564.htm
- "Climate Change" from the University of California, Berkeley's Global Systems Science: http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/studentbooks/cc
- "Climate Change" by KQED Science: https://ww2.kqed.org/quest/tag/climate-change/
- "Activities for Responding to global climate change" by the Nuffield Foundation: http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/science-society/activities-responding-global-climate-change
- "Climate Change" from BP Educational Service (an oil company!): http://bpes.bp.com/collection/climate-change
- "Climate Change Lesson Plans: Exploring the Evidence" by Michigan State's W. K. Kellogg Biological Station: https://www.kbs.msu.edu/2017/02/climate-plans-k-12/
- "Educators' Resource Corner: Climate Change" from the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education: http://eeinwisconsin.org/resource/about.aspx?s=93380.0.0.2209
- "Education Resources" from Southern Oregon Climate Action Now: http://socan.info/education-resources/
- Climate Change Education.Org -- web portal: http://www.climatechangeeducation.org/
I wish I could return the favor here but all I have is a book I ran across on Amazon yesterday---Naomi Kline’s 2015 This Changes Everything: http://amzn.to/2o57fcY. It sounds like she’s kind of hard on both sides---Time magazine called it the “first truly honest book ever written about climate change.” Have you read this? I think I’ll give it a look.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)<image001.jpg>
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
Glenn Hampson
Begging your forgiveness and indulgence----trying to get this homework turned in before the clock strikes midnight. Pasted below (and also attached) is a revised version of the graphic from the previous email. Thanks to Kate Saylor for pointing out that the axes in the original rendition could use a little clarification---hope this helps.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
