I really appreciate this discussion because although I do speak with people about climate change there are certainly times when I hesitate. A NASA glaciologist had some good thoughts about the communication of science in an interview after the publication of his 2014 paper indicating the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was irreversibly retreating. “Eric Rignot: It’s a little bit shattering to say, “hey this is it”, even for the scientists looking at it. It’s kind of a big step to say “I think this place is falling apart”. Interviewer: How do we communicate this to the public? Rignot: I don’t know, but we're not doing a good job at that. I think most of the scientists are not trained for that, so they've been taken by surprise, they don't know how to deal with that very well. I'm trying to learn. I talk to people from digital media to ask them how do we reach the people? The feedback I get right now is, “you guys really suck at it, you're not doing it right, I can tell that you're not trained to do this. The message is not passing.” You know you talk about these things like [monotone voice] ‘business as usual, this glacier is falling apart. West Antarctica is going to be in an irreversible state of retreat’, and the people who listen to that may not click, they feel like, ‘well he doesn't seem so shattered by this, so why should I worry about it?’ We should be a little bit more vocal and direct about these things. You have some how to take your scientist hat off and take a different hat to communicate that. You cannot communicate to the public the same way you communicate to your colleagues. It has to be a different level of communication.” ruclips.net/video/0nOZwCitHgg/видео.html
I really appreciate this discussion because although I do speak with people about climate change there are certainly times when I hesitate. A NASA glaciologist had some good thoughts about the communication of science in an interview after the publication of his 2014 paper indicating the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was irreversibly retreating.
“Eric Rignot: It’s a little bit shattering to say, “hey this is it”, even for the scientists looking at it. It’s kind of a big step to say “I think this place is falling apart”.
Interviewer: How do we communicate this to the public?
Rignot: I don’t know, but we're not doing a good job at that. I think most of the scientists are not trained for that, so they've been taken by surprise, they don't know how to deal with that very well.
I'm trying to learn. I talk to people from digital media to ask them how do we reach the people? The feedback I get right now is, “you guys really suck at it, you're not doing it right, I can tell that you're not trained to do this. The message is not passing.”
You know you talk about these things like [monotone voice] ‘business as usual, this glacier is falling apart. West Antarctica is going to be in an irreversible state of retreat’, and the people who listen to that may not click, they feel like, ‘well he doesn't seem so shattered by this, so why should I worry about it?’ We should be a little bit more vocal and direct about these things. You have some how to take your scientist hat off and take a different hat to communicate that.
You cannot communicate to the public the same way you communicate to your colleagues. It has to be a different level of communication.”
ruclips.net/video/0nOZwCitHgg/видео.html