What's the best way for the scientific community to reverse the current trend?

I can identify completely with your comments that we tend to be reserved in our findings and that by and large we publish a work then move on to the next task in hand.

I guess it could boil down to the fact that scientists tend to make lousy salespeople and as such the promoting of a work is something we a) avoid and b) wouldn’t be any good at even if we tried.

It’s often much easier to get a work of skepticism promoted in the popular media because these have the weight of the powerful backers and lobbyists behind them with all their fancy PR and marketing machinery.

Throughout history, there has been a barrier between science and wider community as a whole. It often takes a long time for scientific findings to percolate down to the mainstream and gain acceptance. There are any number of scientists who didn’t receive kudos for their work until long after the time, and in many cases, long after their deaths.

It’s also human nature not to want to change habits, patterns, beliefs etc and in this instance smoking is a good example. There was clear and irrefutable evidence that smoking was harmful; when these findings were made public many greeted them with derision and skepticism. Even in the face of mounting and incontrovertible evidence it took many decades before the dangers of tobacco smoke were universally accepted.

Now, I’m not meaning this in any judgemental or demeaning manner, but it seems to me that there is a fairly clear distinction between those who are intellectually or scientifically minded and those who are not. The intellectual types tend to reserve judgement until having evaluated the available evidence, they apply logic and analysis to their reasoning, and their sources of information (be it the media, friends, colleagues etc) generally set a high standard when it comes to the dissemination of information.

We don’t see quite the same standards outwith the scientific community. Often the sources of information include the popular media, blogs and publications. Such sources generally apply far less stringent criteria (if at all) when it comes to factual accuracy; preferring instead to attract an audience with stories centred around controversy and gossip.

This difference in acceptance criteria is clearly borne out by the sources used by the believers and the deniers in global warming. The believers are very likely to source their information from established scientific sites whereas the deniers are confined almost entirely to the popular press, online press and blogs.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Answers is not at all representative of the global community. This forum provides one of the very few places where skeptics can congregate and as such there is a hugely disproportionate number of them. It’s also worth noting that the US has an unusually high number of skeptics. Globally the number of people who accept global warming is very high. A worldwide poll found that 90% of people considered global warming to be either a ‘very serious’ or a ‘serious’ threat, in the US that figure was 76%. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/bt...

The problem we face as scientists is that there will always be an incessant barrage of lies and deception emanating from the denier camp; you only have to look at their appalling track record. Climategate was a classic example of this. Within hours of the material being hacked the internet was awash with all manner of fraudulent claims and alleged quotes taken from the scientists. The fact that all the hacked information was made available in searchable databases was of no consequence to many of the deniers. There was one evening when a bogus quote appeared on Answers (the first instance of it on the Internet), with a matter of days it had spread like a virus throughout Answers and beyond and of course, the deniers were reporting on it as fact.

There is no way to overcome the mentality of a person who will report to using any tactic to win their argument, these people are effectively lost causes, and they’re of little or no relevance as no-one of consequence takes any notice of them anyway. Despite all their noise and protestations what have they accomplished? Which policies have they influenced?

The focus of attention needs to be more inclined toward those who are undecided, often through lack of knowledge. The key question therefore becomes how to disseminate reliable and factual information to these people. Given that the overall trend is one of more and more people accepting the reality of global warming I think it’s something that will almost take care of itself in the long run – just as the risks of smoking did.

Reverse what? When in the history of man have we ever had any impact on this planet? Look at pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki today. We even try to destroy this planet and we will not succeed. Alarmism is based on rhetoric and fear mongering. There is no global warming trend, only the same cycle that has been occurring, which they obviously can't predict, even with their all powerful climate models. Why do they keep changing those models by the way? Simply because they keep getting proven wrong!

It's nice to see a scientist with a conscience. Most often, scientists want to see their discovery idolized, and they disregard conflicting information, sometimes right in their own work. The best friend of any investigator is a critic! You would do well to disregard the praise and adulation of the political-power groups and listen more to the detectives. They reveal mistakes and oversights. Attendant humility and a willingness to admit that others can contribute intelligently is necessary for the criticism to have affect. Too often, the scientist takes any criticism as a personal attack, and so becomes defensive. This just complicates the investigation process. If you are married you know that the most powerful healing words are "I was wrong, you are right". You don't need to abandon your discovery, but adapt to the tag-on discoveries and go forward. By the way, AGW is mostly hot air. Climate changes. We can adapt.

Basically, it's education - of scientists and educators as well as the public.

First, we need to identify the real enemy. There is no “current trend”. There are only new weapons (e.g., FOX news and internet blogs) and new tactics (e.g., the attack on evolution) in a 2,000-year long war against all of science.

Theocratic-based social-political conservatives insisted that the earth was flat for 1,000 years after science had proved the earth’s spherical shape; they attacked the Copernican Theory for 300 years after science had proved that the earth orbits the sun (the Catholic Church did not “forgive” Galileo until 1992); and now they have spent 150 years – after science proved the Theory of Evolution – attacking science and continuing to defend a similarly bone-headed idea about the creation of the earth that was made up by some quasi-historic, semi-nomadic Semitic tribes of illiterate sheep jockeys.

Finally, quit making people memorize dozens of arithmetic/mathematical functions; battle through three pages of algebra to solve some simplistic physics problem involving blocks sliding down some damn ramp; and doing a principal component analysis by hand (this was when I knew the instructor was insane) before they understand the cool stuff - like how Lavoisier conducted his final scientific experiment after his head had been whacked off during the French Revolution (he had his assistant stand in the crowd and count how many times Lavoisier blinked his eyes when the executioner head his head aloft after the guillotine have severed it from his body) – and how Eratosthenes calculated the diameter and circumference of the earth using a stick and the length of the shadow it cast at noon in two locations.

I think the best thing scientists can do is to communicate directly with the public. For example, write editorial articles like this one so you don't have to worry about journalists misrepresenting what you're saying.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinio...

And put the scientific concepts in simple terms so everyone can understand them. Another way to communicate directly to the public is through blogs like these.

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/

The only problem there being that only people who are already interested in climate science will read a climate scientist's blog. So going through the mainstream media when possible is a better route. Maybe climate scientists could offer their services for interviews on more mainstream shows.

I think that's about all climate scientists can do. Try to get into the mainstream media, and try to speak in a way which is understandable by the general public. Right now most scientists tend to stick to the scientific community, but they need to do more public outreach and education on a subject as important and misunderstood as climate change.

I honestly don't think scientists should involve themselves in public policy. They should just continue to do their work and let the amateurs scream as loud as they may. When scientists enter into public debate, they are entering the world of the professional deniers and will likely lose the public relations battle.

It is sad that there are some who are trying to create the same climate (no pun intended) that existed during the Chinese cultural revolution where all scientitsts and academics were considered enemies of the state. I don't think scientists are going to gain anything by pushing back on this because it just keeps the debate in headlines. I think the scientists just need to ignore it and it will lose momentum and go away and people will once again trust scientists.

One news station is blocking the real global warming message from getting out?

We certainly need renewable energy, lower emissions, and poorer nations should enjoy the prosperity most of the world enjoys. Unfortunately most relief efforts for poor nations amount to supplying food, water, and medical aid and don't address the real problems of lack of education, infrastructure, and the need to set aside religious and tribal fueds and stop killing each other long enough to improve themselves.

If you want to reverse the trend we are going to have to stop hearing from extremist that believe that our environment is getting worse and worse from industrialization and the improvement of our civilization. We are sick and tired of hearing that global warming only effects poor nations, there are many reasons poor nations stay poor and climate is at the bottom of the list. There are many nations that thrive in extreme environments all over the globe. We are tired of hearing that the latest drought in and around desert regions are caused by CO2, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the desert is there because the climate of that region is DRY and has nothing to do with increased CO2 levels. Huge flood plains created over thousands of years and somehow when there is a flood today in India it's caused by evil rich nations who are recklessly emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.

Continue your research and keep looking for solutions. The intelligent look out their window and see the proof that global warming is real. Philosophy on the environment should be to leave politics out of the research process. Anyone denying global warming now will be jumping into your boat when its the Day After Tomorrow out there in the world. Keep working and keep fighting, you have more supporters than you know.

If you were a scientist you wouldn't care about the politics, you would be carrying out research to prove the point one way or another. What sort of scientist cares about the "current trend in the mass media"? Answer: a Political Scientist, also known as a SINO (Scientist In Name Only).

Let me try:

We all know better than the general public and tell them so, resulting in "increased denial and mistrust of scientists." Solution: Let's do more of that!

As Scientists we all believe I'm a Scientist, right? Just because I can't spell "their" doesn't mean I'm a nerdy kid - I can talk scientisty! Respect my Authority!

Alter research data to create more radical conclusions, and pour more funding into Roland Emmerich's art.