If the public’s understanding of the climate change issue is our measure, then the results are decidedly mixed. There’s a fascinating paper that just came out in Climatic Change by Lorenzoni and Pidgeon[1] summarizing public attitudes and knowledge about the subject that suggests people have a very general and very weak grasp of the science.

I certainly believe, at an intuitive level, that science journalism has a significant role to play beyond providing enough money to pay for my house, food, and my daughter’s college education.

I just think the sort of discussion that Matthew and Chris are hoping to encourage needs to be grounded in some sort of rigorous analysis of the actual role science journalism plays, both in broad public understanding and in the more narrowly focused groups of policy and political actors. That’s what I’m looking for.

[1] Public Views on Climate Change: European and USA Perspectives, Climatic Change, Irene Lorenzoni and Nick F. Pidgeon, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-006-9072-z

Most adults did not have climate change taught to them in school. How did they get their current understanding of the issue (whatever that may be), if not from journalists reporting on it?

I am not disagreeing with you. I am just curious as to your take on the process.

Your last question is the critical one, and one that leaves me increasingly puzzled the longer I do this job.

What I’m wondering, and what I’m hoping Matthew will be able to shed some light on, is what difference science journalism, good or bad, has on actual policy and political discussions and outcomes.

My experience in doing this at a variety of levels and on a range of topics is that, while science journalism can have some effect on the public understanding held by interested sideline observers, it has near zero effect on the understandings of the political/policy actors.

The political/policy actors already have their information. They very much want us to share that information, with the naive expectation that if the media only explained things “correctly” (and by “correctly,” they mean “as they view them”), then they would win the political/policy argument. But that never happens.

A few more thoughts on this question, based on a talk I gave this week to a group of drought scientists, can be found here:

http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/?p=1614