A veteran Ohio State University science communications expert, Earle Holland, is pointing to the lessons from animal and biomedical research as they may apply to climate science and climate scientists.
Holland says it’s time for climate scientists to “take a stance” against unreasonable personal and professional assaults on their integrity. Climate scientists, he says, need to “find a comfortable middle ground between their historical reluctance to engage in public debate over science, and the current push for them to be politically active.”
He says he thinks the biomedical research community stood by for too long without confronting what he says were unfair attacks.
What prompted Holland’s blog? He’s concerned that public misunderstanding of climate science, “enhanced by the vested interests of many who oppose any fossil fuel restrictions or business constraints,” has eroded citizens’ confidence in science … “skewing our public policy.” The University of East Anglia hacked e-mails experience “was a gift for those opposed to the notion that humans are largely responsible for climate change,” he wrote.
“Selective interpretations of some messages, coupled with imprudent comments by some scientists, frustrated by years of attacks, has (sic.) strengthened what much of the public seems ready to believe - that scientists have lied about the extent and severity of global climate change.”
Holland thinks it’s high time for climate scientists to “reject that reaction” and use their voices and professional standing with the public.
It’s not necessarily the way “science works,” Holland allowed. “But in today’s world, ’spin’ often reigns and the wrappings often outshine whatever a package may contain.”
“The idea that patient diligence will eventually succeed is more than simply naïve,” he warned. “It may be dangerous …. Finding such a path shouldn’t be so hard for those who make discoveries for a living.”