Climate scientists around the world have been struggling to understand the public backlash against anthropogenic global warming over the last 12 months or so. In several panels at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting, leading scientists struggled with how best to respond to a rising tide of climate-change scepticism.
“There is a good deal of difference between scepticism derived from evidence, which many of us are familiar with, and scepticism derived from ideology,” said Boykoff.
“It raises questions about who has authority. Who has expertise? Who has the authority to speak for the climate?”
Boykoff observed that in the mind of the public, local weather forecasters – many of whom do not have a science degree – have as much credibility on climate issues as experts. This gap between scientist and layman is a crucial factor in the debate.
William Freudenburg of the University of California, Santa Barbara, pointed out that most scientists worry about whether their work is being understood by the public, rarely the reverse of how the public sphere might affect them. “Scientists as individuals are committed to fairness,” he said. “They’ll listen to any explanation from this side of the lunatic fringe, and perhaps a little more. Because of that, you get a biased outcome. Biased not in the sense of individual prejudice, but biased in the sense of systematic error.”
Freudenburg also said that there is strong pressure to publish results that surprise readers, both in the academic literature and the popular press. This inevitably leads to papers that lean towards hyperbole and ultimately cause laypeople to doubt the entire field, rather than individual papers.
Myanna Lahsen of the University of Colorado, meanwhile, criticized the assumption some scientists have that the public’s problem is a deficit of science literacy; the scientists’ solution is often to fix that with a surfeit of information. Yet more data, she said, rarely persuades laypeople or lawmakers.
Looming over these discussions is the controversy over the e-mails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, which has triggered accusations of research misconduct in a highly politically charged environment. That scandal, coupled with an unseasonably cold winter, has led to a dramatic drop in US confidence in climate-change science.
In several of the panel discussions, senior scientists voiced the need for researchers to become active voices in the discussion. They especially urged older, more established scientists to take the lead because the backlash from sceptics can be damaging to younger colleagues’ careers.
Most of the audience at these discussions were either scientists or press. One audience member, who directly advises policymakers, suggested later that the panels may be missing the point. Policymakers get information from sources they trust. Rather than relying on the power of data, scientists might be better served to create trust and personal relationships with sceptical lawmakers rather than publicly challenging them.