Impediments to Science Information

 The science community is devoting a lot of time figuring out how they can best deliver truth to the citizen. They recognize they have failed to communicate climate science to the American Citizen. In response, science organizations and universities are channeling precious resources into science communication; the who, what, why and how of getting a message to us.

For instance, the National Academies of Science appointed the retired Navy Admiral, Dr David Titley to chair the Climate Communication Initiative to ensure the science community and our national government has access to the best information. Their website with dozens of climate studies is available to all on-line.*

Both Yale and George Mason University formed climate change communication labs and programs in 2005 and 2007. Their informative websites are available to the curious.

These efforts are replicated by institutions of learning world-wide. Why?  Despite the fact the basic science of climate and greenhouse gases is over 100 years old, and the warnings to us started in earnest in 1965, citizens did not get the message.

But were the scientists and science institutions responsible for our ignorance?

Communication depends on a reliable and uncorrupted line of communication. In this case the line from the scientist starts inside the science community. Science teams submit their work to a science journal. This line of communication works well if the basic rules of communication are adhered to. Rule 1,2 &3:  transmitters of information must tell the truth. In the Science community liars lose their credibility, ink, funding, and reputation.  Science Journals who publish scientist’s work are picky. Before printing they send studies out to other scientists for review as part of the peer review process. Lying is rare.

The next step is for the national media to is to take the information from the science journals and distill information down for the public. This is where the process failed for decades.

Big national media is the national TV networks, magazines, and newspapers with coverage nationwide.

The organizations I am a member of have stood aghast at the inability of our major national media institutions to be objective.  Here is something to think about. Our US scientists, as early as President Johnson in 1965, warned us of global warming. In 1989, at Noordwijk, Netherlands, scientists of 69 major countries fiercely, but unsuccessfully, petitioned their respective governments to enter into an agreement to start scaling back the use of fossil fuels. Yet, until this year, do you remember a presidential candidate being questioned about climate change in the debates? If you do not remember your memory is not failing. There were no climate questions asked until 2020. Is it a coincidence the moderators for presidential debates come from our major media outlets?

Climate organizations have petitioned major media for years to be scientifically accurate on TV and in print. The Union of Concerned Scientists has picketed Fox News and the Wall Street Journal repeatedly for spreading misinformation.

You may think I am overstating my point. You may think I am a victim of my own zealous commitment to setting the science right. The question posed to BIG MEDIA by climate scientists and activists for years was, “Why are you giving equal time to the 3% minority who oppose taking climate action when 97%  of climate scientists fiercely advocate action? Is it ethical to feed the American public half the science news from 3% of the scientists?

Were we, the activists, just too sensitive, too eager to complain?

A recent exhaustive survey is in. It was published in the Proceeding of the National Academies this August. In the study The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today were analyzed from 1985 to 2014. Rachel Wett found climate deniers, only 3% of the climate science community, received TWICE as much attention as the mainstream climate science community. Here she sums up her study:  “These findings support previous scholars’ claims that journalistic norms of balance and objectivity have distorted the public debate around climate change, while providing evidence that the structural power of business interests lends them heightened visibility in policy debates.”

We know corporations serve profit first. Our health and well-being is not high on their list of priorities, if at all. Naomi Oreskes book “Merchants of Doubt” describes in detail how tobacco, fossil fuel companies, and other national companies hired professional liars to mislead us, much to our detriment.

But what happened in the back offices of  television companies, national magazines, and national newspapers? To be honest, I do not know.  There is no longer any doubt we, for at least 29 years, were misled about climate and part of this tragedy is the responsibility of the national media.

There are reasons to be optimistic. Most major media outlets, except for Fox, have policed themselves on climate and devote more of their resources to accurate science coverage.

 Science organizations know major media outlets need direct accurate information.  They are making science studies available directly to interested reporters. The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s,  “Sci-line”, is one I use.

One of the most practical efforts has been to teach meteorologists the difference between climate and weather. Who do we listen to more than the weather person? I have noticed a marked change in climate change information delivered to us by meteorologists.

The corporate world is in the process of self-examination. For more on this you may like to read a new book, “Stakeholder Capitalism” by Klaus Schwab the founder of the World Economic Forum.  Mr. Schwab asks if  can we turn our focus away from short-term profits and pursue the wellbeing of all people and the entire planet?

Science publications like the Scientific American are devoting more space to articles teaching us how to defend ourselves from liars. The Scientific American’s cover for November is titled, “Confronting Misinformation”.

And sometimes journalism was and continues to be spot on. Three years ago, during the flood of climate science misinformation, Andy called me and asked to float a climate column. The climate conversation is commonplace today but three years ago, even one year ago, people who spoke about it were looked at as green skinned one-eyed mutants. I have never asked him why he asked. I have an idea it has to do with the values of an old fashion, truth seeking, independent, conservative journalist.

Truth always prevails but it catches on faster when we are brave enough to face it; and facedown lies.

https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/climate-communications-initiative

Next week, social media.