Email 1656
date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:05:20 +0100
from: "Douglas Maraun" <d.maraun@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Informal Seminar TODAY
to: cru.internal@uea.ac.uk
Dear colleagues,
I'd like to invite all of you to todays discussion seminar, 4pm in the coffee room:
"Climate science and the media"
After the publication of the latest IPCC, the media wrote a vast number of articles about possible and likely impacts, many of them greatly exaggerated. The issue seemed to dominate news for a long time and every company had to consider global warming in its advertisement. However, much of this sympathy turned out to be either white washing or political correctness. Furthermore, recently and maybe especially after the "inconvenient truth" case and the Nobel peace prize going to Al Gore, many irritated and sceptical comments about so-called "climatism" appeared also in respectable newspapers. Against the background of these recent developments, we could discuss the relation of climate science to the media, the way it is, and the way it should be.
In my opinion, the question is not so much whether we should at all deal with the media. Our research is of potential relevance to the public, so we have to deal with the public. The question is rather how this should be done. Points I would like to discuss are:
-Is it true that only climate sceptics have political interests and are potentially biased? If not, how can we deal with this?
-How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think, that "our" reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann's work were not especially honest.
-How should we deal with popular science like the Al Gore movie?
-What is the difference between a "climate sceptic" and a "climate denier"?
-What should we do with/against exaggerations of the media?
-How do we avoid sounding religious or arrogant?
-Should we comment on the work/ideas of climate scepitics?
If you have got any further suggestions or do think, my points are not
interesting, please let me know in advance.
See you later,
Douglas
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Dr. Douglas Maraun
Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia