[Coral-List] Scientists have tended to underestimate pace of climate change

Peter Sale sale at uwindsor.ca
Sat Aug 31 03:41:50 UTC 2019


Coral-list,
A new book that explains how scientists have been underestimating the pace of climate change is discussed in a recent Sci Am blog post here https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly-review&utm_content=link&utm_term=2019-08-21_featured-this-week

I suspect reef scientists could learn much from this book (I've not yet read it, but Naomi Oreskes is lead author).  We seem to have trouble articulating our own messages in ways that don't get messed up by the media, and we get too tangled up in trying to convey hope, and in rehashing our own petty squabbles, to present views clearly in ways the public can understand (yes, I know there are exceptions among us).  And we certainly soft-pedal the bad news when presenting 'consensus statements' on the status of coral reefs.

Venturing to say that reefs are toast, or WILL be toast in x years or so, globally, is probably unwise if coming up for tenure at a university that still cares about scientific excellence, but it may be far closer to the truth than our usual 'little bit of bad news capped by a generous dollop of optimism'.  Just a thought from a jaundiced old guy.

Peter Sale
University of Windsor (Emeritus)



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