Comments on: Scientists Call for Climate Action

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:58:32 +0000

What’s interesting to me as a scientist who works directly with policymakers, is that it is fair game for all kinds of people who do not have policy expertise to comment on policy as long as they are not scientists. Business leaders, economists, religious groups, and random citizens on the street are fair game. They are legitimate commentators on climate change policy because they are world citizens. It is intersting that scientists forego this right as citizens in order to protect the apparent objectivity of their science. It’s an ironic sacrifice, given that among all those in society who might comment, environmental scientists tend to be much better educated on the issue than average, even though few know much about policy. What does society lose from the disproportionate silence of this knowledgeable group? I am glad to see these prominent scientsts exercising their rights as both competent professionals and concerned citizens to have their say.

By: eengelh

eengelh — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 03:39:20 +0000

To expand on Tom Yulsman’s point, Seth Borenstein of AP covered the declaration, but few others in the U.S. press gave it much attention.

In retrospect, I don’t think I should have used the phrase “two cents” in my own post, because it could come across as minimizing the news. I certainly didn’t mean it that way. In fact, at the time I posted this I fully expected the scientists’ declaration to be splashed across U.S. pages the next day.

I thought it was important news because I talk to scientists about climate change all the time, and rarely are they willing to comment on policy. Often they say that they are not experts on policy, and this is true and often appropriate, but there is something different about this declaration.

Scientists spoke out this time, and I know it wasn’t easy for many of them. This statement is about scientists leaving their comfort zone to make policy recommendations based on their scientific understanding. They state an endpoint or goal for policy, which science can inform, but not how to get there. The “how” goes beyond science and involves decisions about fairness, development goals, and myriad other issues.

The COP meeting is mostly about the “how” at this point, with a fairly small contingent questioning the basic science. I want to highlight the role of science at this meeting, but I find that it is perhaps not the ways science is used at the COP that are as fascinating as seeing how this issue is moving beyond the science.

By: Tom Yulsman

Tom Yulsman — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:19:08 +0000

As you know Erika, news of the declaration was censored here in the U.S. by journalists who felt that it said nothing new and therefore deserved no attention. Meanwhile, the editors of the N.Y. Times saw fit to run a story about the CIA destroying two videotapes of Al Qaeda operatives with a screaming headline above the fold on page one. I think the story deserved that treatment. But I could easily argue that CIA hanky panky of this kind is nothing new and therefore deserves much less prominent coverage. That would be stupid, obviously. And so is the nearly unanimous decision by U.S. news outlets to utterly ignore the climate declaration. So today, the United States is almost totally isolated on the climate change issue, as you point out. And U.S. journalists are almost totally isolated in how they've covered this issue, since journalists in Europe, Canada and Australia have given the declaration ample coverage.