Red team-blue team? Debating climate science should not be a cage match
Why assembling two teams to debate climate change is all about political spectacle and sowing doubt – and has nothing to do with actual climate science.
Why assembling two teams to debate climate change is all about political spectacle and sowing doubt – and has nothing to do with actual climate science.
On Nov. 2 the White House posted a detailed climate science report without comment. The Trump administration is unlikely to heed it, but it could boost state, local and private sector action.
The Trump administration’s decision to dismiss or accept a government-prepared climate report will have life-or-death consequences, says a climate scientist involved in the previous report.
Scientists need to be comfortable dealing with subjective views, rather than empirical data, and people’s feelings to make progress in addressing climate change.
Climate change science was driven by curiosity in the past. Now climate researchers need to focus on managing the risk of global warming’s ill effects.
Despite scientists’ initial concerns, federal climate change data sets are still available. But other documents and web pages have changed over the last year.
Few white evangelicals in the U.S. say they believe in human-made climate change. This strand of science denial seems to have as much to do with conservative politics as the Bible’s teachings.
People worry Washington is losing respect for science and even the centuries-old scientific method. Two climate scientists explain how science can be done when talking about the future.
Exxon wasn’t the only giant corporation to have climate scientists in the 1980s. Scientists at GM and Ford also honed in on climate change, but they – and their companies – took very different paths.
Understanding sea ice loss requires expensive and difficult expeditions. Scientists have developed a new model that predicts the growth of small ponds on sea ice more efficiently.