EPA Dealing with Censorship, Hostile Takeover by New Administration

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) woke up this week to a barrage of restrictions that a former Administrator under George H.W. Bush called "going down a very dark road." All Agency communications have been shut down and must now go through political review by the new administration. That includes all "public-facing documents" such as "news releases, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content." The administration has also put a freeze on any new work, on contract approvals, on grant awards, and on new hiring. Essentially, the Agency is in lockdown. Similar actions have been taken to restrict all other federal agencies.

The first casualty was the Department of Interior twitter feed, which had retweeted a photo showing the extremely small crowds at Trump's 2016 inauguration versus President Obama's first inauguration in 2008. Many news media reported that Trump was embarrassed by the low turnout and thus closed down the twitter feed, as well as all other twitter feeds from federal facilities. This ban on tweeting did not, of course, extend to his own unsecured twitter account, which he used to fabricate lies about the crowd size that were proven false by actual facts (in contrast to the "alternative facts" [aka, blatant lies] pushed by Trump).

Temporary freezes on agency outreach have happened before, mainly as a way for the new administration to get its team in place and figure out what the EPA is doing. But former EPA administrators confirm that the current censorship and bans far exceed practices under past administrations, either Republican or Democratic.

But the new administration has stated clearly its intent is to restrict agency science and roll back regulations that protect human health and the environment, deal with man-made climate change, and even improve gas mileage standards. The head of the transition team was Myron Ebell, head of the anti-science, anti-regulation libertarian consulting organization, the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Trump's pick to run the EPA is Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma Attorney General who has been the fossil fuel industry's ally, issuing multiple lawsuits to block health protections that would require corporate accountability. He also apparently lied to Senators during his confirmation hearings. Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil and a key funder/promoter of climate change denial and a close ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin, is the pick for Secretary of State.

All of these signal a return to the early days of past Republican administrations who used their political power to censor scientific information and destroy the EPA. Ronald Reagan, for example, had hired Anne Gorsuch, another pro-fossil fuel/mining attorney general, as EPA administrator. She was forced out after intentionally trying to subvert science. Likewise, George W. Bush put fossil fuel lobbyist Philip Cooney in charge of his Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney was caught intentionally editing scientific documents to downplay the severity of man-made climate change. He too was forced to leave the administration, immediately taking a position at ExxonMobil.

So Americans have a valid reason for concern. The incoming administration has been vocally hostile to the EPA since the beginning of the campaign. They have nominated people who have histories of being aggressively anti-EPA and anti-science. Their first acts were to restrict public communication and outreach. They have already signaled rollbacks of congressionally-mandated health and safety rules, while promoting the interests of fossil fuel corporations (many of whom are now part of the administration).

Scientists must push back against such politically motivated anti-science. A few agencies who have had their twitter feeds blocked have apparently set up "Alt-feeds" to continue serving the public. Given the huge success of the Women's Marches on the day after the inauguration (that far exceeded inauguration crowds, despite Trump's blatant lies to the contrary), a group of scientists are planning a Scientists March on Washington.

Meanwhile, the EPA and other agencies have internal scientific integrity document:

The EPA's 14-page scientific integrity document, enacted during the Obama administration, describes how scientific studies were to be conducted and reviewed in the agency. It said scientific studies should eventually be communicated to the public, the media and Congress "uncompromised by political or other interference."

All of us, the public and scientists alike, need to be vigilant to make sure the new administration does not try to remove scientific integrity from the science agencies, as, unfortunately, has been the case in prior Republican administrations.  

[Photo source: Union of Concerned Scientists]

The Disappearing Spoon by Sean Kean

The full title of this book is The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sean Kean. 

The spoon that disappears is made of gallium (Ga, Atomic Number 31), a metal that melts at around 86 degrees Fahrenheit. One scientific party gag was to serve tea in Victorian parlors and watch the guests as their teaspoons slowly dissolved away. Scientists are fun that way.

The book is a surprisingly entertaining as well as informative read. 

Kean takes us through a tour of the periodic table of elements, the mainstay of chemistry and physics. As exciting as that sounds (or not), the tour actually includes murder and madness, love and attraction, and a whole lot of history. 

Early in the book the focus is on the development of the table itself as scientists started to notice patterns of characteristics. Not surprisingly, these patterns relate to the deep-diving chemistry and physics of elements and you'll probably learn more about orbital shells and subatomic anatomy through this book than your introductory science class. 

The author goes on to examine specific elements and groups of elements as they come to be known, all while giving a voyeur's look into the often mischievous (and sometimes mad) world of the scientists - both male and female - who discovered them.

Most science and history loving readers should find this book fascinating. Kean's writing style is jam-packed with information and yet easy to read. And even sometimes downright fun. 

The book is definitely worth reading.

Other scientific book reviews (click and scroll down)

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, by Cathy O'Neil (Book Review)

A hugely important work filled with knowledgeable insights, this book takes a hard look at the promises and pitfalls of big data. Mostly pitfalls. Written by an insider data scientist, the book's title riffs off the infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) of a decade ago, trading the Mass for Math. The clever theme continues with chapters labeled Bomb Parts (basics of mathematical modeling), Shell Shocked (the author's path toward recognizing the problem), Arms Race (going to college)...all the way through Collateral Damage and The Targeted Citizen.

Along the way author O'Neil examines how big data - mathematical models - are now used to determine who gets into college, how corporations target advertising to specific groups, whether you get and keep a job, and assessing credit ratings and insurance risk. Through insider interviews and personal experience, O'Neil documents how model building often integrates the inherent biases of the people building the models, as well as historical biases. In many different ways, and through dozens of pertinent examples, it becomes clear that WMDs are designed primarily to reduce costs and promote higher income for the companies that use them.

Worse, WMDs reinforce societal prejudices and stereotypes, targeting - even if sometimes unintentionally - the poor and minorities, further driving them downward and limiting opportunities for upward movement. The poor are kept poor by reducing access to affordable loans, depressing credit scores, and blocking job options through linkage to factors that are irrelevant or biased. And because these models are black boxes both to the people held back because of them and, often, the people administering and using them, there often is no way to even know why rejections have occurred. Without the model feedback seen in more useful models, these WMDs cause their destruction with no hope of ever improving the algorithms used.

O'Neil jumps from the financial crisis of 2008 to the removal of teachers unfairly to how Google and Facebook influence behaviors simply through their choice of what people see in their feeds - and who gets to see it.

As models, algorithms, automation of processes, and online data collection continue to become more prevalent, and potentially more destructive, this book becomes essential reading. Its valuable insights, whether you agree with everything the author suggests or not, are critical to our informed discussion of what we want our future to look like.

Available on Amazon.

Science Debates Needed for Presidential Candidates

Science is critical to every facet of our lives, and scientific innovation has been a part of American government since George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Despite being hamstrung by the Republican Congress, President Obama has been a big supporter of science research to the point of hosting annual White House Science Fairs. But what do the current candidates to take over the job of President say about science?

Science Debate is needed.

We do have a basic idea of where the candidates stand. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton explicitly said, and I quote, "I believe in science," in her acceptance speech at the convention. She went on to say she believes "climate change is real and that we can save our planet while creating millions of good-paying clean energy jobs."


Republican nominee Donald Trump, in contrast, called climate change a "hoax," and claimed it "was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

Jill Stein, ironically the "Green Party" nominee and a former medical doctor, nonetheless has espoused anti-science positions on vaccinations, homeopathy, and GMOs. Critics have accused her of pandering to the anti-science left wing as much as Trump has pandered to the anti-science right wing.

Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson scores relatively well on basic science literacy in one survey but comes out as anti-vaccination and anti-GMO on another survey. That said, the basic rule of libertarians is to spend as little money and engage in as little government activity as possible, which suggests he would be in favor of cutting science budgets in the executive branch.

Even with these basic overviews, however, we don't know how much priority the candidates would put on science once elected. Issues such as climate change are critical to continue the progress made by President Obama. Other issues such as fracking require more complex assessments and decision making, so here again the ability of the new president to deal with science-based issues is critical. On top of this, of course, are the funding requirements of science agencies like NASA, NOAA, EPA, FDA, NSF, and others. These agencies conduct basic research as well as fund external researchers in addition to their more overt roles.

ScienceDebate.Org is a non-profit organization organized by Shawn Otto, author of the book The War on Science as well as a previous book called Fool Me Twice. Dozens of science organizations have combined efforts to produce 20 Questions related to science to ask the presidential candidate. Questions related to their views on basic science, the anticipated level of priority for their administration, levels of funding, views on education, innovation, public health, water, energy, food, vaccination, and many more. Even immigration has a science component, and one question asks "Would you support any changes in immigration policy regarding scientists and engineers who receive their graduate degree at an American university? Conversely, what is your opinion of recent controversy over employment and the H1-B Visa program?"

Ideally there would be a separate Science Debate in which these questions can be asked directly of the candidates. Barring that, the public should encourage standard debate moderators for the three presidential and one vice presidential debates to ask these questions. Even written responses to the questions would provide the public with input on where the candidates stand on science-based issues. And the public does want that input.

So all of us should be reaching out to the candidates, to debate moderators, and to others in our communities to have these all-important questions addressed by the candidates.

For more info on Science Debate, go to their website.

Book Review – Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom by Peter W. Huber

Galileo’s Revenge is actually an older book published in 1991, and the author has written several since that time. But it is definitely must reading for both scientists and lawyers. Peter Huber is believer in free markets and works at the conservative Manhattan Institute. He is considered an expert on liability lawsuits and clearly feels that courts have mismanaged tort law by allowing spurious claims to move forward, often resulting in huge monetary awards to plaintiffs on questionable science. I suggest the reader quickly move beyond this motivation and seriously consider the information that is put forth in the book.

The book provides several chapters of example cases illustrating the abuse of the courtroom by “experts” pushing specious, and often illogical, scientific explanations for serious injuries or harm. He includes the famous sudden acceleration cases in which the Audi 5000 was targeted as inexplicably bursting forward even though the driver “had their foot jammed on the brakes” (though nothing was shown to be wrong with car). Also liabilities associated with accusations that obstetrician mishandling of birth caused cerebral palsy (since proven false), chemically-caused disease (most of which was shown to be untrue), cancer caused by trauma (not true), the mosaic theory against Benedectin (shown to be specious), and ignoring lifelong smoking to “prove” asbestos caused cancer, etc. There are even cases won by plaintiffs because they had real fear of living close to tuberculosis patients even though there was no medical basis for such a fear. One could add other examples that have occurred since publication of the book.

But the real thrust of the book is how the courts have gotten away from a landmark 1923 ruling (Frye), which “allowed experts into the courtroom only if their testimony was founded on theories, methods, and procedures ‘generally accepted’ as valid among other scientists in the field.” This held sway until the 1970s when expert testimony came to be allowed “if scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact.” According to Huber, at this point mainstream scientific consensus was no longer a requirement, and any fringe theory could be advocated in the courtroom even if it was in conflict with established scientific belief. Together with liability insurance and the tendency to sue those with deep pockets, Huber believes this accounted for many of the huge awards being given to cases based on questionable, or even false, scientific and medical testimony. He spends some time in each chapter describing the unscrupulous “experts” that were hired to provide the needed testimony in such cases.

This book predates the 1993 Daubert ruling, which provided for standards of evidence to be used in court. Daubert superseded the Frye standard of generally accepted by the scientific community, and set a number of additional guidelines for the court to use to determine scientific reliability: testable technique or theory; known error rates of technique or theory; and methodology that has been peer reviewed. These are similar to some of the suggestions offered by Huber in his final chapters. He notes that “a scientific fact is the collective judgment of a specialized scientific community. Good science is defined not by credentials but by consensus.” He argues that there must be careful development of rules for the admissibility of legitimate evidence. There should be a scientific consensus on what the data tell us, not some theory acceptable only to the expert on the witness stand.

I highly recommend this book as a thought starter for all scientists and lawyers. From here readers should move on to more recent books on the topic. And consider Huber’s final words as he suggests that “the best test of certainty we have is good science – the science of publication, replication, and verification, the science of consensus and peer review; the science of Newton, Galileo, and Gauss, Einstein, Feynman, Pasteur, and Sabin; the science that has eradicated smallpox, polio, and tuberculosis; the science that has created antibiotics and vaccines. Or it is, at least, the best test of certainty so far devised by the mind of man.”

National Climate Assessment - An Exercise in Communicating Climate Change

“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present.” So says the new U.S. National Climate Assessment released this week. This is the third such report, which was mandated by Congress in 1990. And the 12 findings are dire.

The report is the result of four years of work, where "more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee" compiled the latest state-of-the-science. Drafts of the report were "extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences."

The bottom line: Man-made climate change is a fact, it is here now, and it impacts every state in our country. Impacts will vary from region to region, so there can be increased droughts in some areas at the same time as increased flooding in others. Impacts, overwhelmingly negative, will be felt in every facet of our lives: health, transportation, energy, water use, ecosystem health, agriculture, and oceans. 

Climate trends include increasing temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and changes to extreme weather events and precipitation. Some of these changes can already be seen today, and the rate of these changes is likely to increase without action.

It's clear that human activity, primarily our reliance on fossil fuels and the resultant emissions of carbon to the climate system, is warming our planet. It's also clear that steps to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions are necessary - and those steps are long overdue. The National Climate Assessment provides information on what those steps can be.

Overall, the rollout (for lack of a better word) of the National Climate Assessment has been an improvement over previous communications of climate change. Rather than simply release the 841-page report (which is downloadable for those who want the details) and forget about it, they have created a snazzy new website appropriate for our tech-oriented (and attention span-challenged) populace. The website tries to make the voluminous data more accessible to the interested public, a definite plus. It allows viewers to review each of the 12 report findings, first with a short statement and then followed by more detailed information. For example, this is the first finding:

Global climate is changing and this is apparent across the United States in a wide range of observations. The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.

The text and graphs that follow are generally easy to follow, and better yet, are generally simple and interactive. The graphics-heavy presentation allows casual users to get the gist of the information, and given most of the public would fall into this category, this is a very good thing. Additional text and citations allow the more interested user to dig deeper into the information. Also a very good thing.


In addition to the website, graphics, and attempts to provide information on multiple levels, there has been a clear effort to reach out to the media. Most of the news outlets had some coverage. While the right wing outlets like Fox News, and even the right wing commentators on CNN, were predictably dismissive of the science, most news programming captured the unequivocal science basis and the urgency of action needed. This can be seen in both national  (e.g., Time) and local (e.g., Portland) news outlets.


Unconventional outlets, for example, the well known in climate circles Peter Sinclair and the blog Climate Science Watch also made an attempt to communicate the findings to the public. Scientific agencies that do climate research, for example, NOAA, also helped spread the word about the report. The administration even reached out to meteorologists (and other "weather presenters") to get the news out to the public.


Will it be enough? Will there suddenly be a push by the public to deal with made-made climate change?


Of course not. But each step taken is one more step closer to action. The public will be the ones who create the demand for action by policymakers (which is why the climate denial industry writes Op-Eds and blogs instead of doing any science). The National Climate Assessment is likely going to fall off the radar for most people as soon as beach season begins, but a concerted effort to keep communicating to the public - even if they are hesitant to listen - is the only way to go. 

That, and cool graphics.


[Note: All graphics presented here come from report]

What the IPCC Gets Wrong With Their Latest Climate Change Report Communication

Graphic courtesy of NASA

As mentioned previously, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rolled out the second volume of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, on March 31, 2014. This was on top of the WGI report: The Physical Science Basis, issued in the fall of 2013. Last week I mentioned some of the things the IPCC did right, including their apparent discovery of YouTube as a communication device. This week I'll take a look at what they could have done better with their videos.

First, the fact that they have videos at all is a sign the IPCC is at least trying to reach the public. The videos are professionally produced and include vignettes of stunning visuals interspersed with explanatory statements by key scientists in the Working Groups. So far, so good. But, and there is a big but. In fact, several. Here are a few:

1) At about 7 minutes and 30 seconds into the WGI video (The Physical Science Basis), Dr. Thomas Stocker, co-chair of WGI, comes on camera to state that "we have three key messages..." He then clearly and succinctly states that:

• The warming of the climate system is unequivocal and based on observations and multiple lines of evidence,
• Human influence on the climate system is clear, and
• Continued greenhouse gas emissions will cause more impacts in the future

Wonderful. Except most of the viewers stopped watching the video when the first scientist came on camera. So it's a major problem that he doesn't say this until more than 80% into the 9:19 minute video. It should be the first thing they say in the video, then repeated at least once more to reinforce it. The reasons why will become evident below.

2) At 9:19 minutes for the WGI video and 12:04 minutes for the WGII video (Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability), the videos are too long for the general public.

3) The audio is sometimes hard to understand, as sound quality is variable. It is essential that the voices are easy to understand by anyone listening.

4) The videos, while available on YouTube and the IPCC website, are not distributed widely enough to engage the general public. Not once have I seen them pop up on Facebook and other "popular" outlets.

Which gets to the crux of the issue. The target audience for the videos appears to be other scientists and policymakers. That's fine, to a point. Some policymakers are too lazy to even have their staffs read the Summary for Policymakers and would prefer a video. But policymakers, especially in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia, simply are not going to start making policy unless their constituents, i.e., the people, you know, like us, start understanding that there is a need to press the policymakers. Sorry, this is a fact of life.

Which means the IPCC and other outlets need to use videos to reach out and engage the populace. And these videos just don't cut it. For example, the WGII video shows many impacts and attempts at adaptation around the world, but most are from developing and/or highly vulnerable regions. That's fine, in fact, essential, given that they may be disproportionately impacted. But the real drivers of action will be the aforementioned "Big 4" (US/UK/Canada/Australia). These are where the most influential people live, and also where the most egregious climate denial lobbyists are active. These are the people that need to understand the dire need for action. And they simply aren't going to be become activists by flashing only places that they can't relate to as exemplars of impact. They need to see how a warming planet impacts them, with "them" being the millions of people living in the Big 4 who generally don't have to worry about their parched climate getting even drier, or their sinking island sinking faster, or the next Super Typhoon. They need to see what impact it will have on the price of food they buy in the local supermarket, the cost of electricity for their houses, and on immigration patterns. In short, the populace needs to feel that this global problem will have local impacts right there in River City, or whatever place they call their back yard.

So, my recommendations to the IPCC and others is to stick with video because it is the medium most likely to be seen and understood. But make shorter videos that hit the points earlier and are focused on impacts more relevant to the populace of the Big 4. Make the videos Facebook-friendly. Get them out there where everyone can share them. And use language non-scientists can easily understand. Use memes if you have to.

But reach out directly to the public, for it is they who will stimulate the policymakers into action.

Communicating Climate Change: How the IPCC Gets it Right, and How They Get It Oh So Wrong

Graphic courtesy of NASA

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) officially rolled out the second volume of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on March 31, 2014. Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, the report compiled over the last several years by Working Group II of the IPCC, provides in excruciating detail the future risks of our changing climate. While they don't exactly put it this way, their findings can most succinctly be summarized as "humans are creating severe negative impacts to our planet, and we are sorely unprepared to deal with it."

This Working Group II (WGII) report follows on the heels of last fall's WGI report: The Physical Science Basis, which examined (again in excruciating detail) the physics, empirical measurements, and voluminous data that unequivocally demonstrate we are warming our planet, mostly due to our reliance on fossil fuels and the associated emissions of carbon into the climate system.

Booyah!

And by that I mean that it is great that the IPCC has once again summarized the data since the last time they summarized the data, which of course covered the data that had been produced since the time before that. As the AR5 suggests, this is the 5th time the IPCC has produced these voluminous reports over the last 25 years. We're warming our planet. And that is not a good thing.

And yet, we haven't taken any substantive action to deal with that scientific fact. Mostly because there are vested interests out there spending millions of dollars intentionally denying the science and blocking discussion of policy options. So is the IPCC getting the scientific point across or not? Let's take a look at some of the things the IPCC has done right, and then a few things they need to do a whole lot better.

Doing right!

More time spent with the rollout of the report: Unlike past reports, the IPCC seems to have finally realized that they can't just have a press conference, hand out a 2000+ page report, and start planning on the next round of reports due in 7 years. This time they actually tried to get national and international media outlets interested. This wasn't always successful, but it needed to be done.

Individual scientists are more open to doing media: One of the biggest problems in the past is that scientists tended to be gun-shy about doing media. Let's face it, they had good reason. The media, even the best intentioned ones, generally do a horrific job presenting science. But some scientists - Michael Mann is probably the best known at the moment - have been willing to risk attack to be interviewed. And yes, I mean attack. Mann especially has been attacked by climate deniers, both the professional lobbyists and their amateur denier followers. But speaking to the media - and the public itself - has become mandatory in order to counteract the disinformation campaigns.

Hey, Did you see it on YouTube?: One of the best communication devices IPCC has employed on this go-around are videos. Even the IPCC has discovered YouTube and provided professionally produced videos highlighting key scientists in the Working Groups, basic concepts, and the main conclusions. Bravo! [Ah, but it isn't all good. See below and next post.]

Needs a lot of improvement!

I have several of these so I'll split them over a couple of posts. Let's start with the obvious.

2000 pages are good, but how about something for me?: The reports by necessity are long. After all, they have to synthesize thousands of papers published since the last review. Since only die-hard scientists will read (and understand) the full reports, the IPCC provides a Summary for Policymakers for each WG report. While that is great for policymakers it really is worthless for most of the general public. What IPCC needs to do is provide a one or two page Summary for People, written in plain language, that highlights the major principles and conclusions. And write it for me - I watch The Big Bang Theory, not study it.

Here is what a Summary for People might look like:

WGI: The Physical Science Basis

Point 1: The climate system includes the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice, the plants, the animals, and even the rocks and soil.

Point 2: Energy from the sun warms our planet.

Point 3: Our atmosphere keeps the surface of the planet about 30 degrees C warmer than it would be without it.

Point 4: While more than 99% of the atmosphere is made up of Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon, none of these materials has any effect on the temperature of the planet.

Point 5: A handful of trace gases are responsible for maintaining our temperature at a livable level. The most important of these gases, called greenhouse gases, are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4, and water (H2O).

Point 6: While water is the most important on a short-term basis, carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas for determining the long-term temperature of our atmosphere.

And so on. Keep it to one or two pages.

The point of this Summary for People is that most of us, like, say, 99.99% of us, don't need to know the aforementioned excruciating details so carefully discussed in the full report. And even the Summary for Policymakers is too technical for a general public whose main responsibility is to raise their family in a complex world. To be honest, it's clear most policymakers can't understand the Summary for Policymakers either (nor can their staffs). And some policymakers don't care anyway since taking action requires taking responsibility, something that they don't really want to have to do (especially in an election year).

But, and here is the take-home message for this post, it is the people who will tell their elected representatives to stop avoiding reality and start doing their jobs, i.e., figure out how to deal with the fact that we humans have been turning up the dial on the heat of the planet. It is us people that will put pressure on those policymakers to actually make policy, and do so before that heat dial goes all the way up to 11.

So come on, IPCC. Let's take the science to the people directly. And let's do it in language the people can understand. Let's heed the advice of writers, where there is a oft-repeated mantra to "kill your darlings." Writers should delete unnecessary language even when, and perhaps especially when, they've fallen in love with a particular turn of phrase. The IPCC needs to kill its darlings. The scientific language is fully necessary for the technical reports; it needs to be shaved in the Summary for Policymakers; but it needs to be left by the wayside in the Summary for People. And a Summary for People is absolutely necessary.

I'll end this post here but want to delve into the videos IPCC produced for the rollout of the reports, so I'll deal with that in the next edition. Be sure to come back.

Book Review – Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public by Cornelia Dean

I periodically review books that address the issue of communicating science to the public. Today's book is Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public. A much needed book for scientific and non-scientific communities alike. Written by science writer (and former New York Times editor) Cornelia Dean, the book makes the case that scientists need to make “their work more accessible to the media, and thus to the public.” This doesn’t come naturally to most scientists, and so the book gives some practical tips on how scientists can accomplish this goal.

 

Dean starts with “an invitation to researchers” to put aside their natural reticence and distrust of the media and help themselves and journalists get the key messages of their science across to the public. Because there are plenty of people out there who don’t hesitate to misinform the public about the science in order to protect their own interests (e.g., the climate change debate). In ensuing chapters she provides some insights into how scientists can better “know your audience,” help educate and work with journalists, and how to get the message across on radio and TV, online, and in the courtroom. She also offers tips on writing books, writing Op-Eds and letters to news outlets, and writing about science and technology in other venues.

 

Two of the most valuable chapters actually have to do with how journalists cover science issues. In “Covering Science,” Dean notes some of the differences in style and communication between journalism and scientific writing. These differences set up an inherent conflict. Scientific researchers view journalists as being superficial, insufficiently concerned with accuracy, focused on controversy, and even “ignorant.” In turn, journalists view researchers as boring, “caveating things to death,” prone to incomprehensible jargon, and incapable of drawing a definitive conclusion. In “The Problem of Objectivity,” Dean discusses the limitations of journalistic “balance” in which one opposing voice is given equal weight to the thousands of proponent voices because both sides are represented. This journalistic trait is exploited by, for example, climate change deniers, who know that TV interviews with one scientist and one naysayer (even if he is a non-scientist) looks to the public like “two sides” of a debate, even when the science is overwhelmingly in favor of one view. Given that it is often difficult for a journalist to know the state-of-the-art of the science, this opens the door for imbalance, ironically, in their effort to provide balance.

 

Perhaps the most valuable chapter to scientists is “The Scientist as Source.” Here Dean provides some practical hints as to how scientists can best interact with journalists. Again she encourages scientists to put aside their hesitations to speak to the press and to embrace the opportunity to get out a message that accurately reflects both the research itself and the ramifications of that research to the public.

 

“Am I Making Myself Clear?” is quite readable, as one might expect from a science journalist. I recommend reading this book along with Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America and Randy Olson’s Don’t Be Such a Scientist. All three books are useful to the scientist to help him or her relate better to the public, and to the public at large to better understand how science works.

Climate Scientists Talking to the Public

Graphic courtesy of NASA

One of the more emphatic debates these days is whether scientists should talk more with the public. Traditionally, scientists do their science in the lab or the field, toil for weeks or months (or even years) over analysis, and then write up their findings for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals to be read only by other scientists.

The public sees none of this. They usually can't access the journals because they don't have a subscription. Not that it matters; scientific writing is generally incomprehensible to anyone outside their field of study, never mind the public. In any case, single papers are only pieces in a very large puzzle, and who outside of a few academics has the time to work on a puzzle that size? Well, no one.

So where does the public get its scientific information? Largely from the news media, who generally, okay, let's be frank, do a lousy job of communicating the science as a whole. Usually a single paper is presented as if it is the entire puzzle, not the one piece. And tomorrow's piece, presented just as breathlessly by a media geared towards sensationalism, may seem to totally contradict yesterday's piece. Add to this the fact, yes, the fact, that there are parties out there who intentionally try to mislead the public. The obvious example are lobbyists paid to protect their benefactor's interests by standing in the way of policy changes that could negatively impact the short-term bottom line. By now I think we all know some blatant examples.

Which leaves scientists. The traditional "do science, let others communicate it" mantra just doesn't work any more. Science is part of everyone's life...every single day. That's a good thing. But with the virtual cesspool of blogs, where anyone can saturate the internet within hours with the most inane non-scientific drivel, the public is inundated with information. As Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum noted in their book, Unscientific America, on the internet "there’s tons of information available, but much of it is crap.” So to counteract that crap, scientists have to step up and communicate the facts of science directly to the public. This isn't a new idea. Carl Sagan did that with his original Cosmos series (recently resurrected with Neil deGrasse Tyson), and the above-mentioned Chris Mooney discussed it in a 2010 Washington Post Op-Ed.

The idea has gotten new legs in recent weeks in an effort to get the facts out about man-made climate change. Penn State climate scientist (and co-author of the "hockey stick" paper) Michael Mann recently wrote a New York Times Op-Ed called "If You See Something, Say Something," a play on the post-9/11 warnings in many of the nation's subway systems. Phys.Org discussed the pluses and minuses in a recent post, saying "Climate scientists want to interact more directly with the public." Others have also tackled the issue.

Let's be blunt -  there clearly is a need for scientists to ensure the public gets an accurate picture of the science behind man-made climate change and other scientific issues. But how to do it? At the very least it's important for scientists to become more accessible to the public. Get a Facebook page to highlight your research, tweet your latest findings, Google Plus your research. Ah, but here's the rub. Do it in a way that isn't going to come off as overblown gibberish readable only by those who have spent years learning the jargon. Drop the "sciency talk." Talk to us in language we use every day. The public doesn't need to have every detail so that they can replicate your research. We just need to understand what is happening (e.g., the planet is definitely getting warmer and we are the main cause) and what it means (e.g., it could make George Strait's song about "Oceanfront Property in Arizona" sound like a good investment opportunity).

In short, scientists need to remember that they are part of the public too. Share your work.

Book Review – Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum

I periodically review books that address the issue of communicating science to the public. As suggested by its title – Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future - this book acknowledges the limits of the public’s understanding of science and how science works. But I felt the book was most powerful because it focuses on the role of scientists in disseminating scientific information.

The first two chapters give a very nice background on the role science has played, from its high funding and close relationships with policy-makers soon after World War II, to its period of low funding and disconnect from policy-makers, to the more recent “war on science” (the topic of Mooney’s previous book).

Much of the main part of the book looks at the intersection of science and other institutions. Individual chapters look at science as it relates to politics, to religion, to its portrayal in Hollywood, and to journalism, all within the subcontext of C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” theme. In short, different ways of thinking, and different needs, affect the interaction of the two institutions in the dyad. For example, whereas the needs of the media are episodic, science is more incremental. So every incremental finding coming from scientific studies can be picked up by the media and presented as if it is a revelation. Except it might suggest the opposite of yesterday’s revelation. No matter that the two studies merely looked at different parts of the picture and support the full knowledge base, the media assume each piece stands on its own. This can be, and usually is, highly confusing to the public. Similar conflicts in the messaging occur between science and religion, scientist depiction in film (usually as a stereotypical caricature), and politics.

One chapter discusses the role of blogs. As newspapers and broadcast media have been eliminating science coverage, at least 1000 science blogs have sprung up. While blogs can help disseminate information broadly, the authors say “[t]he problem with the internet is obvious to anyone who has ever used it; There’s tons of information available, but much of it is crap.” Misinformation thrives, and those who want to manipulate the debate can publish whatever they want, and unfortunately, usually do. Much of it is biased, inaccurate, or outright fabrication. Which is why blogs may be useful for rapidly getting the word out, they cannot be relied upon for an accurate assessment of the science itself. The exception, perhaps, are blogs written by the scientists themselves.

The authors refer repeatedly in the book to Carl Sagan, an astronomer who was also a stellar communicator, but whose popularity was often seen by other scientists as an indignity (i.e., to traditional scientists who preferred to do their science and leave the communication to others). But in the end the authors of Unscientific America, one a journalist and the other a scientist, assert that disseminating the science to the lay public, to the media, and to policy-makers is an “integral part of the job description of scientists themselves.” Essentially, they say that it should be part of every scientist’s responsibility to communicate the science accurately, and to make sure that the science is not misrepresented by those who would misuse it.

The book is eminently readable and surprisingly insightful. The book is definitely worth the read.

Communicating Science - A TEDx Talk by Sheril Kirshenbaum

I ran across the following video recently and felt that it does a very good job of identifying some of the problems scientists experience communicating their science to the public. Even better, it provides some simple ideas on how to communicate better.

Sheril Kirshembaum is co-author with Chris Mooney of the book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. She is also the author, appropriately enough with Valentine's Day upon us, The Science of Kissing. As the Director of The Energy Poll at The University of Texas at Austin, Kirshenbaum focuses on how "to enhance public understanding of energy issues and improve communication between scientists, policymakers, and the public."

Here's the video:



As scientists we are used to talking to other scientists. Traditionally we've left the communicating-to-the-public part up to other people. We've even frowned on the idea of being "popular scientists" (think, Carl Sagan). But with the ability of any blogger or lobbyist to saturate the internet with misinformation, the need for scientists to communicate science has become a necessity. Kirshenbaum and others (think, Michael Mann) are helping to make that happen.

And so will we. More to come.

Communicating Climate Change in an Era of "Skeptics"

So man-made climate change is real. It's happening. And it's due largely to human activity. That is the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their most recent update on the state-of-the-science.

The IPCC concluded that "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and it "is extremely likely [95-100% certainty] that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."

You can't get any more clear than that.  It's warming, and we're the main cause. Oh, and we need to do something about it because there are severe ramifications to all mankind from the changes to our climate. It's unequivocal.

So why aren't we doing anything? Why aren't the two parties in the United States Congress competing to come up with the best plan for dealing with this unequivocal, extremely serious, issue? Why don't we see the British Parliament and the European Union debating policy options? Why is Australia, after beginning to institute one policy mechanism, suddenly trying to repeal the measure?

We've identified a problem, the science is clear, the consensus of the world's scientific experts is nearly unanimous. So why aren't we taking action? It's a question for the ages.

Actually, it's not all that complicated. Us humans are a funky species in that we have the capacity to make choices that change our circumstances. And yet we hate to change. We get comfortable, though "comfortable" often just means "being used to the way things are" even when "the way things are" isn't really how we would prefer them to be. Just think about the number of people who say they hate their jobs, yet hate the prospect of quitting and finding something new. We hate change.

Add in that there is an entire industry of climate "skeptics." These skeptics provide the cover us "afraid of change" humans need to avoid making the tough decision to change. I'll talk more about climate skeptics in the future, but suffice to say there are the professional "skeptics," those who get paid to provide the fodder, and amateur "skeptics," those who quite unskeptically swallow that fodder.

This leads to a dangerous dynamic in which some parts of society intentionally misrepresent the state-of-the-science (largely because they don't like the policy options) and other parts of society gobble up the misrepresentations (largely because they don't want to know the state-of-the-science...because it makes them feel uncomfortable).

So how do scientists and other interested parties effectively communicate the science so that we take the necessary action? It doesn't help that scientists are used to conversing with other scientists in language that can be incomprehensible to the general public. Publish in a scientific journal, debate in scientific meetings, and let someone else communicate the information to the people deciding how to address the science in the public policy arena. Well, we've seen how well that works, especially when there are people out there with wide influence who feel their source of profit might be threatened.

I'll get into how scientists and other can communicate the concepts of man-made climate change to the public in future posts. The first lesson is - scientists have to communicate to the public. Directly. And often.

The Dake Page Revival

Welcome!

The Dake Page is undergoing a revival in 2014. For a variety of reasons the page didn't receive very many updates in 2013 and focused primarily on reporting of news. As this year unfolds expect to see more emphasis on analysis of key scientific issues, reviews of relevant books, and discussions on how to improve the communication of science between scientists, policymakers, and the public.

That last point is critical. Too often scientists try to talk to the public as if they were talking to their fellow scientists at scientific meetings, only slower. Saying things like "Anthropogenic Climate Change, or AGW, has resulted in a 0.8°C increase in the global average surface temperature...zzzzzz..." really isn't very helpful to the general public looking out their window and seeing the New Year's day snowfall. Especially when there are people out there getting paid to confuse the public. Likewise, to have a policymaker, e.g., a U.S. Senator or Representative, suggest that utter falsehoods created by a British tabloid writer associated with a "think tank" are somehow "science" is doing a disservice to the public.

Two areas along the nexus of science and policy will get special attention because they represent critical scientific issues that need immediate response.

One is man-made climate change. We are warming our planet. This is certain. We know what needs to be done to address this problem. We'll take a look at what we know and how to get beyond the man-made roadblocks to dealing with this critical issue.

The other is modernization of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). We currently have agreement from all parties, all stakeholders, and the public that the law that is supposed to ensure "protection of human health and the environment" needs to be updated. We have a proposed bill on the table. It isn't perfect. We'll discuss why it could pass anyway, and perhaps why it should.

There will be other topics as well, but these two will be the primary focus, along with their corollaries. Expect some unexpected connections as well.

So for those who have loyally followed The Dake Page for the last 7 years, thank you and welcome to the rejuvenation. For those just discovering the site, welcome. I hope we all can learn something about how how scientists and policy interact, and how both can better communicate with the public.

EDF Questions Independence of TERA Kids Chemical Safety Site

Recently, the Toxicology Excellence in Risk Assessment (TERA) non-profit group teamed up with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and others to initiate a website called Kids + Chemical Safety. The site purports to provide "up-to-date health information on chemical hazards and chemical safe use in children." Its tagline is "+ Balanced, scientifically accurate chemical health information." Scientist Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), however, questions TERA's independence.

After pointing out that being a non-profit "does not conflate to, or somehow confer the right to claim, objectivity or independence" (noting that the NRA and EDF itself are non-profits but have a clear perspective on the issues they address), Denison goes on to suggest that the site is not what it seems.

Denison categorizes the topics of the website into two groups: 1) those that are "largely outside of the vested interests of the site's most prominent sponsor" (i.e., ACC), and 2) those that "fall squarely within those vested interests." Denison argues that those two categories "are treated very differently on the website." I'll leave it to you to read his arguments and determine whether his case is valid.

The issue that the website and Denison's counterpoint raises is really about how the public gets its information on the health and safety of products on the market. Ideally all products would have been proven safe to the extent such a proof is possible, with the information from the multiple studies involved synthesized and presented in language both trustworthy and easy to understand by the general public. But this is rarely the case.

Part of this is because science is messy. It doesn't always give us an easy and definitive answer. More comprehensive pre-market testing would help, but in many cases there is no way to prove a negative, i.e., that actual use might result in some unforeseen hazard. We're probably stuck with that uncertainty, though we clearly can do more to reduce it. 

But part of the communication problem is also because the public has learned to distrust the information that is being presented to it. Independent sites could be a good way to build trust, as scientifically accurate information is distilled into something we can all understand. That requires true independence. Unfortunately, too many "grassroots" public information campaigns have turned out to be "astroturf," i.e., they may look real from a distance but are revealed to be fake upon closer inspection. It is small wonder that the public has developed a cynical attitude toward the information it receives.

Clearly Richard Denison feels the new TERA site, in part supported by the chemical industry, does not adequately achieve the independence needed to inspire the public's confidence.

Again, please read Denison's argument before deciding if he makes his case. But also think about how data can be presented in a way that can be both trustworthy and useful. After all, the goal is to inform the public - first, to ensure reasonable protection of their health and safety, and second, to avoid the irrational fear of the unknown caused by lack of reliable and dependable information.

EPA and NSF Offer Grants for Green Chemistry, Life Cycle Research

The USEPA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on December 20, 2012 that they would offer grants for up to ten different research projects - totaling $32 million. The grants will be divided between two areas of research.

For Networks for Characterizing Chemical Life Cycle research, interested parties can get more information here.

For Networks for Sustainable Molecular Design and Syntheses, interested parties can get more information here.

Requests for applications for the grants are due by March 18, 2013.

Book Review – Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public by Cornelia Dean

A much needed book for scientific and non-scientific communities alike. Written by science writer (and former New York Times editor) Cornelia Dean, the book makes the case that scientists need to make “their work more accessible to the media, and thus to the public.” This doesn’t come naturally to most scientists, and so the book gives some practical tips on how scientists can accomplish this goal.

Dean starts with “an invitation to researchers” to put aside their natural reticence and distrust of the media and help themselves and journalists get the key messages of their science across to the public. Because there are plenty of people out there who don’t hesitate to misinform the public about the science in order to protect their own interests (e.g., the climate change debate). In ensuing chapters she provides some insights into how scientists can better “know your audience,” help educate and work with journalists, and how to get the message across on radio and TV, online, and in the courtroom. She also offers tips on writing books, writing Op-Eds and letters to news outlets, and writing about science and technology in other venues.

Two of the most valuable chapters actually have to do with how journalists cover science issues. In “Covering Science,” Dean notes some of the differences in style and communication between journalism and scientific writing. These differences set up an inherent conflict. Scientific researchers view journalists as being superficial, insufficiently concerned with accuracy, focused on controversy, and even “ignorant.” In turn, journalists view researchers as boring, “caveating things to death,” prone to incomprehensible jargon, and incapable of drawing a definitive conclusion. In “The Problem of Objectivity,” Dean discusses the limitations of journalistic “balance” in which one opposing voice is given equal weight to the thousands of proponent voices because both sides are represented. This journalistic trait is exploited by, for example, climate change deniers, who know that TV interviews with one scientist and one naysayer (even if he is a non-scientist) looks to the public like “two sides” of a debate, even when the science is overwhelmingly in favor of one view. Given that it is often difficult for a journalist to know the state-of-the-art of the science, this opens the door for imbalance in an effort to provide balance.

Perhaps the most valuable chapter to scientists is “The Scientist as Source.” Here Dean provides some practical hints as to how scientists can best interact with journalists. Again she encourages scientists to put aside their hesitations to speak to the press and to embrace the opportunity to get out a message that accurately reflects both the research itself and the ramifications of that research to the public.

“Am I Making Myself Clear?” is quite readable, as one might expect from a science journalist. I recommend reading this book along with Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America and Randy Olson’s Don’t Be Such a Scientist. All three books are useful to the scientist to help him or her relate better to the public, and to the public at large to better understand how science works.

Andrew A. Rosenberg to Lead New Center for Science and Democracy

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has announced that  Andrew Rosenberg is joining the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to serve as director of its new Center for Science and Democracy.  Rosenberg previously "served as the Northeast regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service," and later as NMFS's deputy director. He is also the convening lead author of the oceans chapter of the U.S. Climate Impacts Advisory Panel. Most recently he was at Conservation International, where he was the senior vice-president for Science and Knowledge.

 The goal of the new Center for Science and Democracy is to restore" the essential role of science, evidence-based knowledge, and constructive debate in the U.S. policymaking process, using three core strategies:"

• Restoring public confidence in, and support for, the use of independent science in public policy making;
• Helping decision makers, citizens and journalists distinguish evidence-based information from propaganda;
• Working with scientists to help them become more effective communicators and policy contributors.

More information on the new Center for Science and Democracy can be found here.

Information on the other activities of the Union of Concerned Scientists can be found here.

Elsevier Discusses "Article of the Future" - Is This Open Access?

In the last post I talked about the efforts of some people to shift published research from the firewalled journal article to an open access format.  The argument is that the public, who indirectly fund a lot of basic scientific research via taxpayer-funded research grants, should have access to the research without having to pay for expensive journal subscriptions.  The blog I linked noted a significant scientific boycott of Elsevier, one of the major scientific journal publishing houses.

Today I'll introduce something that Elsevier is doing to harness the power of online publishing for its scientific journals.  In what they call the "Article of the Future" project, Elsevier notes their "ongoing initiative aiming to revolutionize the traditional format of the academic paper in regard to three key elements: presentation, content and context."  They have provided a short video on their web site as an overview of their progress:




As the video notes, the new access systems significantly enhance the amount of information that can be derived over the traditional "flat page" journal article.  But is it open access?  Not really since a subscription to the journal is still required, or at least access through academic libraries that have purchased online subscriptions for use by students in their individual schools.

So what is the solution?

Calls for Open Access Include a Boycott of Elsevier

Recently there has been a lot of talk about making scientific journals open access.  The argument is that much of science is funded by the taxpayers via government grants, etc., and therefore the public should have access to that research.  As we all know, most scientific research is published in peer-reviewed journals, and those journals are published by companies who obviously require a profit in order to continue to fund publishing the journals.

With the growth of the internet the argument is that costs of publishing have significantly decreased, and in fact many journals no longer even print a hard copy.  Digital rules.  Still, there are costs associated with the process and publishers need to cover those costs in order to remain in business.  No business, they say, no published journal on the internet - digital doesn't create itself.

It's a difficult issue.  Clearly the future of information is online.  So what business model is best for the changing times?

I came across this blog and video that advocates for complete open access and notes a scientist boycott of Elsevier, a publisher of many valuable scientific journals.  Is a boycott fair? Is Elsevier's right to have a profitable business trumped by the public's right to access to knowledge, at least knowledge derived from publicly funded research?  And given full open access, would the public even know what to do with the information presented in scientific journal papers?

What do you all think?

[Note: Tomorrow I will look at what Elsevier is doing to better use the power of the internet to enhance the communication of knowledge]