Week Eight - Science Advice to Policy

One of the greatest challenges facing global climate change happens at the science/policy interface. It is at this point where the key research and findings from climate scientists are twisted and interpreted into policy. Most of the miscommunication happens here and it can really seen between policy makers and scientists.

When scientists work is interpreted at this interface, much of their work's relevance is lost in translation. A good example of this would be when it comes to matters of certainty. In the science world, the number of things that can be thought of as absolutely certain are extremely minimal. Scientists are taught to be skeptic, even of their own work. This means that even if a scientist and his or her peers observe something to be true 100% of the time, they will still question if what they are seeing happen, will still happen every single time. This thought process goes on over and over again until either it is concluded that what was observed happens every single time, in which case it will go on to be known as a theory and tested even more to see if it is true under other circumstances. If it is found to not be true, more research will go into findings out what is causing this variability and more findings will be found and tested in the same manner as described above.

This example can be a major player for some of our big carbon emitters in the world. They see this uncertainty in scientists work as a way to attack climate change. To them, if something is not 100% certain than it cannot be true. This is the message they send to the general public to ensue doubt about our scientists.

This interface between communication is one of the biggest hurdles that, if we overcame it, could allow us to take serious steps towards combating climate change. If we could figure out how to get the message that researchers are trying to convey, over to policy makers in a language that they understand, great strides towards a climate policy would be able to take root and make it into our world.