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DCL
By Naturally Savvy
It's easy to get lost in all the climate change headlines. Study after study tells us some new finding supports climate change, but it can be difficult to put one tiny piece of the puzzle into context, and confusion among the general public is all too common.
In a recent TED talk, atmospheric chemist Rachel Pike, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, shed some light on the process behind climate science, explaining how a research project leads to the headlines you see in the newspaper.
It's a fascinating four-minute look at how information is collected and examined, outlined for the media, reiterated by the media, and finally consumed by the average person who may or may not have a background in science or research.
This sort of explanation has perhaps never been more relevant considering the controversy over e-mails between American and British climate scientists that reveal the researchers discussed ways to make their research stand up to criticism.
The e-mails were a boon for climate deniers, and further confused those who had some doubts about climate change. But Pike's TED talk reveals the worldwide climate science community is far bigger than a few misguided scientists.
Case in point: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report was written by 620 scientists from 40 countries, and the report was nearly 1,000 pages long. Another 400 scientists and reviewers from 120 countries read the report before it was released to offer their insights and suggestions for revision. A giant conspiracy? Doubtful.
By offering a glimpse into the processes that occur between data collection and the headlines you read over breakfast, Pike has helped make climate science more accessible and transparent. Leave it to TED to change the way we view things.
