Just in case you can’t get enough climate science these days, public radio outlets doled out double-dose today.
Two recent climate studies were highlighted on KQED’s Forum program today. Host Dave Iverson invited me to join him, along with UC Berkeley researcher Inez Fung, author of a new study on seasons shifting from rising temperatures, and Phil Van Mantgem, who led a new USGS study on the alarming rise in tree mortality across the western U.S.
Van Mantgem then popped up on NPR’s Science Friday, followed by New York Times correspondent Andrew Revkin, author of the widely followed Dot Earth blog, who responded to recent polling on changing attitudes toward climate change.
Podcasts of both programs are available at their respective websites (linked above).
This coming week, we’ll begin our two-part series on methane’s contribution to global warming. Part One airs on The California Report on Monday morning, followed by Part Two a week later. Part One examines where methane comes from and why regulators are looking at it with new concern. In Part Two, we’ll visit a dairy farm near Modesto, where methane from cow manure is being captured and turned into electric power and steam–but not without considerable expense and frustration with regional air & water quality regulators.
One thought on “Megadose of Cli-Sci on Public Radio Friday”
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Hi Craig,
Heard both radio programs last Friday. Callers from both audiences raised questions on the lack of agreement within the scientific community regarding human influences on climate change. Both panels offered good responses. However, no one mentioned the recent survey of scientists published by Maggie Zimmerman and Peter Doran:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/
Here are two news blurbs:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/
It would have been helpful to respond to those audience questions with the recently published survey. Please put this one in your back pocket for next time.
The findings regarding meteorologists and geologists are important. I’m sure most climate researchers get upset when hearing scientists from outside fields speak out publicly against the anthropogenic influences on climate. More than not, they simply are not familiar with the research material.
I follow climate change closely, and believe this is a very important issue. Too many college-educated Americans are climate change doubters. They are easily deceived by misleading arguments and false claims by seemingly authoritative people. The results of this new survey underline the difficulty people have–including scientists from other fields–in understanding climate science, and how easily they can be swayed by disinformation and misinformation.
It’s embarrassing to have non-specialist scientists speak out against anthropogenic climate influence. And it’s crucial for us all to better communicate climate change science, and to refine our message in a way that effectively counters the doubters–both scientists and non-scientists.
Thank you all for speaking out loudly and clearly on climate change. But still, there’s a very long uphill battle to convince Americans about human influences.
Michael Poremba
San Francisco
Note, there are now a number of good daily newsletters and RSS feeds on climate news. Please promote these to encourage self-education:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/earth_climate/climate.xml
http://feeds.newscientist.com/climate-change
http://www.climatechangenews.org/
http://www.dailyclimate.org/