Tracing the contours of the consensus debate in climate change: The sequel
August 11, 2017
In August 2013 I wrote a blog post on the issue of ‘consensus’ in the context of climate change. This topic had been put into the climate communication spotlight by a paper published in May 2013 by Cook et al. entitled: ”Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” (for more background, …
Do metaphors really matter?
June 16, 2017
I, like many others, from Leibniz to Lakoff, think that metaphors are important for human thinking and acting. They make us see the world in different ways – for good or evil. So, one should keep an eye on them. Recently I have read two articles which seem to imply that metaphors matter less than …
Climate Change on the Bathroom Wall: How Vice, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post report on environmental issues
December 16, 2016
This is guest post by Mike S. Schäfer, Professor of Science Communication at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IPMZ) and Director of the Center for Higher Education and Science Studies at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. This article was first published in the European Journalism Observatory, Dec 14, 2016. *** Shouting protesters …
Broken science, broken record?
August 30, 2016
The phrase ‘science is broken’ recently popped back into my head. I had read it quite often in the past, but in the context of current debates about the place of science in society I began to ask myself: What does this phrase actually mean? And why do people use it? ‘Science is broken’ To …
Science, utility and responsibility
August 21, 2016
The value of science for society and the role of scientists in society has been debated for a long time (and in this context the word ‘science’ generally refers to the natural, physical, biological sciences). Just recently the topic has crept up on us yet again. Some have argued that, in the context of climate …
The meanings of climate
July 1, 2016
This is a guest post by Martin Mahony (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Nottingham Research Fellow, School of Geography) announcing a public lecture. The lecture sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, I am away and can’t got to it, but I hope that lots of others will be able to attend! *** What do we talk about …
Climate, science and politics: The certainty and consensus confusion
April 24, 2016
In this, my probably final, blog post on climate change, I’ll return to a topic that has troubled me for many years, namely religious rhetoric used in debates about climate change science and climate change politics. The terrain between climate change science and climate change politics has become a bit of a swamp and the …
Flooding and ‘the Dutch solution’
December 29, 2015
Some years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, US news media featured Dutch-style flood management as one of the engineering solutions that may prevent future devastating flooding in the regions affected. The same happened after the winter floods in the south of UK at the beginning of 2014 and similar references are …
Making Science Public blog posts 2015: An overview
December 17, 2015
This year the Making Science Public blog has been dominated by two topics: climate change and synthetic biology. One topic is on the way out, so to speak, as the climate change focused project within our research programme is coming to an end. It will continue though in a new guise, in the shape of …
Climate science and climate fiction: Alarmist, really?
December 6, 2015
For more than 25 years, climate scientists have warned politicians and the general public about the dangers posed by global warming. Sometimes they have been listened to; more often then not they have been accused of alarmism. For more than a century, novelists and film makers have explored the possible, often catastrophic and dystopian, effects …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
Find, follow, join us
