{"id":16540,"date":"2013-12-23T08:54:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T13:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/?p=16540"},"modified":"2013-12-23T08:54:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T13:54:52","slug":"agu-talk-on-science-and-advocacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/archives\/2013\/12\/agu-talk-on-science-and-advocacy\/","title":{"rendered":"AGU talk on science and advocacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"kcite-section\" kcite-section-id=\"16540\">\n<p>We have often discussed issues related to science communication on this site, and the comment threads frequently return to the issue of advocacy, the role of scientists and the notion of responsibility. Some videos from the recent AGU meeting are starting to be uploaded to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=UUAmvZawnAXogfsrXWKpPTVw\">AGU Youtube channel<\/a> and, oddly, the first video of a talk is my Stephen Schneider lecture on what climate scientists should advocate for (though actually, it mostly about how science communicators should think about advocacy in general since the principles are applicable regardless of the subject area):<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" data-src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CJC1phPS6IA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The talk has provoked a number of commentaries from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org\/2013\/12\/agu13-gavin-schmidt-speaking-up-and-speaking-out\/\">Yale forum<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com\/2013\/12\/20\/climate-scientists-then-and-now-espousing-responsible-advocacy\/\">Andy Revkin at DotEarth<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/judithcurry.com\/2013\/12\/22\/rethinking-climate-advocacy\/\">Judith Curry<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com\/2013\/12\/23\/gavin-schmidt-and-judith-curry-on-science-advocacy\/\">Bart Verhegggen<\/a> &#8211; with varying degrees of comprehension of the main points.<\/p>\n<p>There is a lot of overlap between my talk and those given by Stephen Schneider twenty and thirty years ago &#8211; in particular the video at the Aspen Global Change Institute on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agci.org\/library\/presentations\/about\/presentation_details.php?recordID=10192\">whether a scientist-advocate was an oxymoron<\/a>, and in descriptions on <a href=\"http:\/\/stephenschneider.stanford.edu\/Mediarology\/Mediarology.html\">his website<\/a>. Though I also touch on newer discussions, such as those raised earlier this year by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/political-science\/2013\/jul\/31\/climate-scientists-policies\">Tamsin Edwards in the Guardian<\/a> and in subsequent twitter and blog conversations. Another relevant piece is the paper on bringing values and deliberation to science communication <span id=\"cite_ITEM-16540-0\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16540-0\">(Dietz, 2013)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s new today is that scientific communication (and scientists communicating) is no longer limited to a few top voices in the broadcast media, but rather to a much wider (and perhaps younger) cohort of scientists communicating at many different levels -via blogs, twitter, facebook, reddit etc as well as in the mainstream media. Issues that were merely academic to most scientists a few decades ago, are actually very real to many more now. A greater appreciation of what other scientists have previously said about advocacy is perhaps needed. <\/p>\n<p>I will likely write this lecture up more formally, but in the meantime I&#8217;ll be happy to discuss the points or the implications in the comment section. Note that I at one point mistakenly credit Aristotle with a quote that actually came from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Elbert_Hubbard\">Elbert Hubbard<\/a> (thus are laid bare the dangers of finishing a new talk late the previous evening&#8230;).<\/p>\n<p>While difficult, let&#8217;s keep the discussion about advocacy in general, rather than for or against advocacy of specific policies. <\/p>\n<h2>References<\/h2>\n    <ol>\n    <li><a name='ITEM-16540-0'><\/a>\nT. Dietz, \"Bringing values and deliberation to science communication\", <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/i>, vol. 110, pp. 14081-14087, 2013. <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.1212740110\">http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.1212740110<\/a>\n\n\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<\/div> <!-- kcite-section 16540 -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have often discussed issues related to science communication on this site, and the comment threads frequently return to the issue of advocacy, the role of scientists and the notion of responsibility. Some videos from the recent AGU meeting are starting to be uploaded to the AGU Youtube channel and, oddly, the first video of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-climate-science","7":"category-communicating-climate","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16540"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16606,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16540\/revisions\/16606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}