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Keeping the public looped in on what scientists are discovering has never been easy. For one thing, the traditional explainers - journalists - can distort, hype, or oversimplify the latest breakthroughs. But the need to communicate science broadly and clearly has never been more urgent.






The result has been a “corrosion” of public confidence in climate science, says Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). That “damage,” he says, “has spilled over into other fields of science.”

Fewer science writers

At the same time, traditional news media outlets have been cutting back on science writers. In 2008, CNN dismantled its entire science reporting staff. While few newsroom cuts have targeted science coverage so directly, countless examples of thinning ranks - including ABC News announcing in February that it will shed about 25 percent of its news division - have displaced many specialist reporters.


One effort, announced at the meeting, will recruit Hollywood to help scientists tell their stories. NAS and the University of Southern California will team up to draw on USC’s expertise in film, TV, websites, and video games. The partnership will be the first between a federal agency and a film school.






Sober warning

Some might look for today’s Carl Sagan, the scientist who popularized astronomy through books and TV shows decades ago. Dr. Sagan had a way of engaging people by explaining the wonder of space - a very positive message, Semper says.






Gregory M. Lamb reports for the Christian Science Monitor.

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Comments (4)


I am a scientist, and I know of thousands of other scientist that do not believe "compelling evidence that the world's climate is about to change significantly" No matter how many times you repeat this canard, it will NOT be true.

Let me repeat the words of the much maligned and disgraced Professor Jones who recently stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research.

(He now admitts that) "the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled."

Read more:

So please refrain from using such platitudes that are not based on fact....

Daryl, if you're going to claim expertise then I think it's reasonable to ask about credentials. What field is your degree in? I assume if you're referring to yourself as a scientist, you have a research degree, that is to say, a PhD. Because as a lowly graduate student, I would never refer to myself as a "scientist", having not completed my dissertation.

I only ask because it is my admittedly anecdotal experience that all of the "I'm a scientist!" climate-science deniers are either a) fifth-grade science teachers with a degree in elementary education or b) engineers. If this is not the case, please forgive my skepticism - it would be a first for me.

"Thousands of other scientists"?

Really? Who are they? Where do they work? What are their qualifications?

The Daily Mail did not interview Dr. Jones. They merely "interpreted" a few bits of his BBC interview for their own purposes. Here are some bits of his actual interview that you can "interpret" for yourself:

BBC: "How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?"

BBC: "Would it be reasonable looking at the same scientific evidence to take the view that recent warming is not predominantly manmade?"

Jones: "No."

Dr. Jones seems to fall into that "vast majority of scientists [that] see compelling evidence that the world’s climate is about to change significantly, and that the change is largely driven by human activity", wouldn't you agree?

The fact that he is able to discuss uncertainty regarding his work and entertain the possibility of other answers shows that he is a scientist instead of an agenda-driven internet commenter.

A tenth of a degree C per decade is noise on the data line; Phil Jones knows it, and said so, "no statistically significant warming".

What is the resolution of the thermometers used to gather the data? I know it is more than a tenth of a degree C. I once had the assignment to test an infrared night vision sight that was required to resolve a tenth. I had to control the difference between a target and background to better than a tenth. I could not do it with standard methods and thermocouples; I had to use platinum (resistance temperature detectors). As Dr. Jones stated, a tenth of a degree C per decade is "no statistically significant warming".

If Hollywood helping scientists tell their stories is an effective strategy, our society is in deep trouble.