At the moment, climate research is contested by the same small number of people who have always contested the evidence that humans are causing the climate to change and that this is something we need to be concerned about. These people now have a lot more air time in the media because of the recent exposure of some mistakes that crept into the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, and the hacked emails. 

Our former chair, Peter Liss,  said in the Telegraph last week that the evidence for there being substantial climate change due to man's activities is huge. If you want to argue against that case you have to produce some evidence.

Which is a fair point. It is damaging to the public understanding of the science that the IPCC report has at least one glaring error and this has been front page news for a few weeks. Also,  specific quotes from the leaked emails reflect poorly on the scientists. But the actual science is still sound - there is a mountain of evidence to back it up. What evidence is there to the contrary?

See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686


Owen 






On 15 Feb 2010, at 16:34, Chris Stokes wrote:

Out of interest, how easily do science communicators nowadays go about engaging the public in dialogue about climate change without acknowledging the contested nature of the science?

Chris

________________________________

Nicola Buckley:

Hi, what about David Mackay on the sums we need to do about tackling our dependence on fossil fuels? It's not really fodder for a debate about manmade climate change - is it happening or not - but[...]

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Owen Gaffney
Director of communications
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Secretariat
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
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Sweden

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