40 Words You Can't Say to a Climate Reporter

[MostlyHarmless]

Time Magazine has an article "The IPCC's Media Problem" on some of the manifestations of "Post-normal Science":

Quote:First is a letter from Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chairman. In it Pachauri says that his "sincere advice" is that researchers should "keep a distance from the media," and refer all questions about their work to the co-chairs of their individual working groups. (The IPCC assessments are divided into three working groups that deal with different parts of climate science.) The second document is a "media guide" for climate researchers put together by Resource Media, a non-profit NGO that has helped publicize the IPCC's work in the past. (You can see the document here.) In the guide, Resource Media advises researchers on where reporters may be coming from—apparently we tend to be jaded, world-weary, poor and sensitive to criticism—and how to deal with them. The advice ranges from the helpful—if you don't know the answer to a question, say so—to the goofy: "Be positive." Especially jarring, though, is a list of words that the guide suggests scientists should avoid using when talking to the media because they may be misunderstood. Now, like any science reporter, I'm all for researchers avoiding unnecessary jargon—of which there is much in climate science. But some of the words to avoid are just, well, strange. Here's a selection:

PDF

Review

Species

Positive

Negative

Theory

Uncertainty

Error

Ecology

(Yes, that's right. Researchers who are working on what will be the biggest scientific project on the biggest environmental problem in human history are for some reason supposed to avoid the term "ecology." I guess we should just be glad they didn't include "climate" and "change" on this list.)

The link to the Resource Media document "Background & Tips for Responding to the Media" is included in the quote above.

The advice is rounded off with this:

Quote:Finally … avoid scientific jargon.
Below is a list of words that mean one thing to scientists
and something else entirely to the public and reporters. To
lower the risk of being misunderstood, avoid them. Ask a
media expert for alternatives.

The list includes the "scientific jargon" words:
Uncertainty Literature Risk Bias Error Proposal Positive Negative Theory Manipulation

Presumably reporters (and by extension the rest of us thickos) may misinterpret a word like "Uncertainty". We certainly don't misinterpret a word like "Manipulation".

[strogoff]

Other "technical" words to avoid:

Aerosol, ozone, trend, SST, THC*, feedback, radiation, model, mean, sensitivity,... Are they going to avoid the word model??? So, what are they going to talk about in AR5?

I think that these words are excellent hints: there´s where their "science" is weaker.

NOAA has already a complete library to teach scientists how to communicate Climate Change (to people or press):

http://collaborate.csc.noaa.gov/climatea...ation.aspx

(* not Tetrahydrocannabinol, but Thermohaline Circulation)