Climate Change in the Northwest Atlantic

Climate Change in the Northwest Atlantic

Welcome to the conference blog for Climate Change in the Northwest Atlantic, April 26-27, 2007. This blog will follow the forum over its two days of multidisciplinary discussion. Our blogger, Scheherazade Fowler, will deliver as much of the presentations, questions, and discussion as she can capture. Participants can add comments, questions, or additional notes during or after the conference.

This meeting is intended to connect people who research the science and economics of climate change, people who write about science, and people who create policies that govern how humans interact with the ocean. Our goals are to explore how humans can adapt to changes in the ocean. Because our group is professionally diverse and this conversation is a new one, we hope to uncover provocative questions and thereby improve our own research and outreach efforts. This meeting is also the first collaborative project between the University of Maine School of Law, the Aquatic Systems group at the University of Southern Maine, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. We hope this meeting sparks future collaborative research and public education projects.

The meeting is divided into four substantive discussions: Science, Economics, Policy, and Journalism. A wrap-up will conclude the meeting and help us decide what this group should do next. We invite you to participate by following this blog, organized by discussion theme, and by adding your thoughts and comments along the way. Welcome!

Famous Last Words: Everyone In The Room Says What We've Learned

At Alan's request, we go around the room and say what we took away from these two days of talk. (I got MOST of them -- tell me if I didn't get you):

  • Science is important.
  • Economics is important.
  • Don't be cynical about the media -- you have more opportunities to change minds than you might think.
  • It's important to communicate science to policymakers.
  • The school of law is rethinking its role and wants input, so talk to Rita.
  • We need to think more about adaptability, thinks that don't break with unexpected outcomes.
  • We need to amplify the voice of science and economics in the policy arena.
  • Scientists need to learn to get comfortable with the media.
  • Resist the instinct to attribute every change to climate change.
  • The story is the fundamental way we make sense of information.
  • Management process needs to look more broadly than we have in the past -- beyond next year's quota.
  • The only way we can deal with scientific uncertainty is through active public discussion.
  • If we wait for scientific certainty it will be too late to implement useful policies.
  • The challenge of climate change creates the opportunity for new alliances.
  • Increased outreach is needed.
  • Keep working on the relationship between economic, scientific research and values.
  • Don't be afraid of the press.
  • When you're trying to communicate your science, you've got to know your audience.
  • I'd like to convene a group like this respond to a practical scenario.
  • We still don't know how to move forward to improve our government structures.
  • Our focus in discussion quickly shifted to commercial species, but we need to look at all species and the whole ecosystem.
  • Interdisciplinary groups are important.
  • Even if the climate were totally static, these approaches would be important anyway.
  • Maine is a great place.
  • Scenario planning is great.
  • You Mainers need to figure out your lobster situation fast -- we didn't in Southern New England.
  • Great conference. Thanks to Rita, Nicole, Kathryn, and the Law School.

Alan Lishness: A Raconteur Wraps It Up

Starting with some logistics: Lunch is coming right up after my talk, and after that you're on your own -- can stay and talk later if you like. Alan is taking on the job of being a raconteur -- a word he had to look up.

"A raconteur tells anecdotes in a skillful and meaningful way"

Alan says -- thanks for the blog: I didn't need to take notes and I got to listen better. I've also taken comfort from the fact that the people in the room have been such fervent participants. The people in the room know a lot more than me.

Alan has distilled what we heard, and has a few words about each of the conference speakers.

If you're a speaker, listen up for his summary. Did you say that? Did you mean that? Is that the most important thing that you said? And furthermore, think about what's next.

Lew Incze said that scientists operate on a premise of certainty, and that we may need to rethink that. He also said that the global models are not as well refined as the models of ocean in the coast of Maine.

Andy Pershing said that ocean data in the Arctic may give us in the Gulf of Maine a year or two preview of what's to come. And that long-term monitoring stations and their data are crucially important.

Kevin Friedland said that the NAO is a dominant force, and that its hard to predict what will happen to fish when we don't know the mechanics of how fish migrate and reproduce.

Dan Holland said that our fisheries regulation have made more specialized fishermen,

Rob Johnston said that we can deal with risky outcomes, but it's harder to deal with uncertain ones, and that the language of economics can help.

Jon Sutinen said that market prices don't tell the ecological truth and that markets, governments, and civil society are the three things that drive human behavior.

Bill Brennan said that communication is the fundamental place where science, economics, and policy must conserve.

Linda Mercer said that we need more flexible and adaptive management practices -- ecosystem based, not single species.

Meinhard Doelle said that we need to engage society in the required value choices, and scientists need to speak up before they get to the 95% confidence threshhold.

Justin Kenney said that scientists are very credible with the public, and that if we pose problems we need to link it to a solution.

Peter Lord said that editors want action, local relevance, and human interest, and that the political climate has made the environment go mainstream.

Jerry Fraser said there has to be comity (not "comedy!") in this debate, and that we need to let people figure things out for themselves on their own timeline. The people will get it right if you give it time.

Jeff Tollefson said that Al Gore didn't make the wave of climate change, it happened a long time ago and is just cresting now. He predicted a reversal of the debate -- business driving environmental regulation.

Alan synthesizes these points with some key terms: complexity, uncertainty, the concept of "sound science" (95% certainty before we speak), science vs. advocacy, the linkage of problems and solutions, and "whose news" (where do people today get their news or learn the truth about the world? 80% of Americans neither bought nor read a book in 2006).

He asks speakers to chime in: did I correctly characterize what you said? And what happens next?

Lew: I wasn't suggesting we move from the 95% certainty state for the purposes of science, but that we acknowledge we need to speak publicly and bring policy to the table before we've arrived at that state.

John Annala: most policymakers don't rely on a 95% certainty or confidence when evaluating solutions.

Barbara Vickery: The important thing is to identify monitoring systems for the experiment of public policy, to gauge whether policies we implement are working while we're doing it. We need more "sound science" in policy.

Bill Brennan: As a policymaker, a framework for making those decisions is something risk averse politicians would like, but you are forced often to make decisions based on gut instinct.

Jon Sutinen: Where there is controversy and competing interest, uncertainty kills action: progess is stalled because in a controversial uncertain situation, people tend to wait for certainty rather than risk being wrong.

Bill B.: That's the nature of our deliberative process.

Lew I.: I agree -- sometimes debates are thwarted, even by nonsense, where we acknowledge

Where we do make progress in uncertainty where we have a prior history and a background of conversation on the topic, we do better. We often cast these problems in terms of a single decision point, but what we need to look at is the larger process of bringing the public into environmental debate. The seawall article is the product of a larger series, about 10 years, triangulating and talking about seawall policy. We don't want to be immobilized by uncertainty.

Dan Holland: It's clear that we're not going to get rid of uncertainty anytime soon. We need to set up systems that will perform pretty well and robustly regardless of which way things move. Rather than fixating on outcome, we should put our energies into designing institutions that adapt well to changing circumstances. We need to design adaptable systems, that don't end up having to have decisions forced on inflexible institutions, and have that drive policy.

Rita: Is that a new governance regime?

Jon Anala: This more flexible system is being implemented in the southern hemisphere. Adaptive institutions aren't new governance systems, but rather a different approach to risk -- you can't wait to be certain; you have to take risks and learn from the outcomes.

Bill Brennan: New governance approach should change the scale of decision-making, to a more local level where the better information resides. Messy town-meeting style governance works -- zone councils put people together who have different incentives, rather than leaving it to a dispassionate government entities who aren't as connected to the resource. (The scribe wonders: But doesn't that miss the interconnections with other fisheries and other populations? I thought the thrust of yesterday was that international cooperation and larger scale ecosystem management was a better way of managing resources.)

Q: (I missed it) about the Magnuson Act. Didn't get it.

Q: Rita -- is the level of management required for fisheries translateable to a local government entity?
A: Bill Brennan: this is a personal responsibility issue. We need to reduce emissions on vessels. Power companies don't emit just because they have nothing else to do. They're emitting because they're producing something that the market wants, and nobody is requesting that they stop.

Patten: new boats can't buy used engines, now. You're not regulating existing boats, but you're putting new regulations on fisherman.

Andy Pershing: regulations are based on a hypothesis, but nobody's testing those hypotheses. You need to test the policy decisions you make to see whether the hypotheses you based those decisions on are valid.

Don Perkins: What's the most effective approach? -- focusing on outcomes, or on more narrow solutions (inputs). I'm not sure the policy world thinks like this. If there were more focus on outcomes, and about setting up systems that can respond and be more flexible, that will probably put us in a better and more resilient situation to adapt to the uncertain changes. I don't see a lot of research-driven debate about these two approaches. Example: no fishing on spawning herring is an outcome based approach, rather than closing a particular geographic region from May 15th and June 15th. Let people figure out how to get to the outcome, don't regulate based on an input.

Q: but that's hard to regulate -- you can only regulate behavior -- you need regulations you can enforce!
Comment: Charles N___: policy goals are preferred outcomes, but policymakers have to figure out what kind of regulated behavior will achieve those outcomes. That's what good policymakers have to do.

Rita: Would a scenario planning exercise be helpful to policymakers?
A: Linda Mercer: yes! Most of our actions are reactive. We should engage in scenario planning, but it always needs to be locally relevant. You need to make it more real to the people who are going to be impacted.

Don Perkins: The lobster community has been worrying about a crash for about 10 years. A scenario planning exercise, if structured and publicized right, could be welcomed by that community. Pat, what do you think about that -- how would the lobster community respond to a scenario planning exercise?

Pat: Lobster and herring are both crucial to the economy of the state of Maine. I'm trying to engage the lobstering community now, while there's not a crash, in how you reduce mortality. We're not crashing, but we're in decline -- landings are down everywhere except in way downeast Maine, and it would be good for us to reinvest our money now before we're in the situation they're in in Long Island. I'd love to engage these folks, and the herring community. The groundfish people are gradually cutting each of their fingers off. If we'd taken appropriate action back then, the groundfish situation wouldn't have gotten so bad. The parallels to the lobster industry are scary. I think what's kept us alive is that we've done some scenario planning.

Dan Holland: how do you set up scenario planning? You can't wait for a crash. You need to set up a signal, and identify that right, so you'll know when a decline or a crash is on its way and you can then engage the right social response.

Lew: Yes -- you need scenario planning on a couple of different timescales, and you need to identify the right signals for that.

Comment: You need a local mechanism to get lobstermen to the table. Conversations are remarkably rational when they take place around a kitchen table or in a church basement. You really have to start locally, in order for people to fully engage. Maybe I'm naiive, but when those safe places are established, I think the process works really well.

Peter Lord: There's a 5 year time lag between a collapse and the congressional response of appropriating money to study it and propose solutions. Maine had better pay attention.

Rita: Is it a responsible or good idea as a policy measure to "blame the climate" -- fishermen are so eager to tell the policymakers that it's not our fault, will adding an additional uncertain but possible cause of fisheries decline be irresponsible?

Lew: It's not responsible to blame climate change if we don't know that it is a cause. These kitchen table conversations by fisherman are great, but we need to move things more formal. It's not fair in public debate to reframe fisheries decline as a climate change issue when we know there are other causes, and other management solutions.

Pat: Even if the management decisions won't change (e.g. restrict fishing) or the cause (climate change vs. overfishing) can't be addressed by regulation, knowing what climate change may do to fish populations, water temperatures, migratory patterns, egg production, that's important scenario planning that will inform decision making.

Lew: our warnings are couched in a lot of disclaimers: science is being asked to predict a lot of things that haven't been modelled before.

Pat: The reason we don't throw the scientists overboard for their dire warnings is that they've built a bunch of credibility. And we understand the need for them to get better data: that's why I was on my hands and my knees on the boat counting lobsters -- we need to be able to see what's happening, and so do they. The groundfish industry doesn't have such a good relationship to the scientists.

John Anala; (missed it)

Bill Brennan: management in a remote area, if local fishermen don't understand and agree with the regulations, it is very hard to enforce. Participants need to understand the basis for the regulation, even if they are not necessarily the cause of a decline.

Rita: What kinds of research suggesting more flexible management systems would be heard by policymakers? What are the steps toward making our regulatory bodies more

The Magnusson Act came from academics. But it's like the tax code -- you keep trying to fix it by adding crap to it.

Geoff Smith from the Nature Conservancy: the law does have some flexibility in it -- it provides for science and research to

Kevin Friedland: innovations in management come at the development team level?

Jeff Tollefson: Think tanks are driving some of the new schemes: the cap and trade approach came from think tanks. Ideas can come from almost anywhere, but it's a long and normal process. Policymakers don't come up with solutions themselves. Ideas perk for a long time, and crystallize, and gain a constituency, and that's what moves through the policy arena and gets chosen by politicians.

Jon Sutinen: How do we reach Congress?
Brian: How much does it crystallize at the state legislature level? Is the state legislature a parallel process, or is it a feeder to Congress?

Jeff Tollefson: American government was designed not to work. That's a deliberate structure. You have to have a certain amount of consensus before something can get through Congress. States are the laboratories. You need to get a certain amount of crystallization before an idea will take place.

Jon S: yes, but the groups you named as impacting Congress are in DC, having drinks with staffers. We researchers are far from the Hill. Do we have a chance of getting our ideas?

Jeff: There are a few key people who carry ideas forward. You need to figure out who those people are. Where business and environmental groups come together, that's a signal to reporters and politicians that you've resolved some complex and important issues at a fundamental level. That gets the attention of staffers and Congressmen.

Bill Brennan: Amen. If someone comes into your office and says, "We've taken this complex issue and have arrived at important compromises, and distilled it to its essence, and here it is," that makes a Congressional staffer's job easier, and they'll listen.

Jeff: And even then it's still going to be messy.

Alan: What next?

This group wants to do some scenario planning. We should engage some managers. Who's missing? Managers (invited but didn't come to this meeting). Industry types should be here.

Pat: my goal to come here was to listen and bring back what's going on here to the Atlantic states. I'm just a juror. This will influence my future decisions, although not necessarily a huge amount. Your efforts here aren't lost. But if you invite lobsterman and it's a sunny day after three days of rain, you're not going to get more than 50%. I don't get paid to go to meetings like this, but the people who care will try to show up.

Linda Mercer: there's a lot of energy around ecosystem-based management. There are a lot of meetings. Practically, how do you put effort into things, when you're inundated by meetings?

Jon S.: I suggest that an effort be made to guide the scientific research community to communicate to the public. I don't know how to write well. A lot of us hunker down in our offices and labs and do our work. I see a need to reach out, write op-ed pieces, do a responsible job getting good science out there to counter the bad science and the irresponsible journalism out there.

Geoff Smith (Nature Conservancy): If we want to do scenario planning and we can't get the lobstermen to come to us, can we bring ourselves to them? Bring this information to a lobster zone council meeting to impart information and collect it from them?

Pat: No way. It's got to be filtered or gel, first. They're not ready for it.

Break

This is a noisy break. People are talking with their hands and lingering in the room -- how do you get an op-ed into the New York Times? Can scientists play a role in translating other science to reporters? What do you make of the Al Gore documentary -- what's the lesson to scientists from An Inconvenient Truth? Are those panelists out of touch -- is the mainstream print media still a governing force? It's fun to overhear snippets of conversation with punchlines like, "I promise, I'll stay out of domestic fisheries!" producing knowing laughs. "My carbon footprint has dropped by 77% because I'm not travelling so much anymore."

Journalism Q&A -- A Wide Ranging Conversation

What started as a panel discussion has turned into a dynamic conversation that involves the whole room. I'm doing my best to capture it -- I'll add links a little later, and if I miss a question or a name, please leave a comment to clarify or fill us in. People are really engaged, and again and again people are building on, linking to, and drawing in the comments of other people and the contents of yesterday's sessions.

Q: Rita Heimes: Scientists are the most credible spokespeople, but they get to be that credible partly by waiting for a level of 95% certainty. But you guys have said, "it's never too early to start thinking about communications" -- when is it too early to start talking to the public? When do you lose the credibility of the scientists?

A: Justin: You need to think about this early -- not necessarily start speaking early. But you need to have an eye on your communications plan from the very beginning.

A: Jon Sutinen: I'm very uncomfortable being an advocate, as a scientist. I think it's dangerous to ask scientists to be advocates.

A: Justin Kenney: Reporters who hear scientists crossing the line into advocacy hang up, or find another scientist. I work for an advocacy group, so I don't have quite as tough a role.

Peter Lord
: it's messy for scientists to get involved in politics. But if scientists don't get in the conversation, the anti-science people win. They're writing op-eds, misquoting literature, and creating stories, while the scientists are doing science. It's not advocacy if you write an op-ed piece talking about how the IPCC came about.

Q: What about balance? Are reporters still asked by editors to go hunt down the few remaining scientists who are saying there is no climate change?

A: Peter Lord -- finally, no. There's lots of debate about how much, and how, and what the impacts will be. But it's no longer a controversial story, finally, that climate change is happening.

Jerry: there's an economic component to all of this, and when you make regulations they almost always have a financial toll. From my eyes, we're always watching the possible burden that will go on the shoulders of fishermen, in an attempt to get to the elusive goal of some kind of climate stability. It's easier to put things on the fishermen -- we're not well-funded, there's no "center of influence" for commercial fishermen. I ask environmental groups why they're chasing the fishermen, and they tell me: because we can't stop pollution, and we can't stop coastal development. Those people have a lot more power. This is all falling on the fishermen, and that's not fair. And climate change is such a rage right now. Maybe you think it's great that it's now on Sports Illustrated or Ms. Magazine, but that tells me the tipping point of credibility has come and gone. It's a frenzy now. Regulations that dump all the burden onto fishermen with more expensive equipment or that restrict our range, etc.

Meinhard: It seems to me, Jerry, that you should be one of the biggest advocates and allies for global greenhouse gas emissions reductions. To the extent we can mitigate and reduce the possible impact, we can reduce the kind of adaptation that's going to fall hardest on your industry.

I also want to say that I disagree with the proposition that problems should always be linked to solutions, or people will disconnect or feel hopeless or overwhelmed. If you want to educate people on this issue, I'm not sure you always have to link it to offering solutions. Solutions are complex, and when you offer solutions you open yourself up to attack -- people start debating the solutions, whether this one is better than that one or whether they will work.

Compare where we are with the Europeans. The average citizen in Europe is fully engaged in this issue. They don't have all the answers, but they recognize what is at stake. You need to motivate people to expect change, and to start to think about reasons to mitigate.

Q: How do you make this a local story? A: Maybe it's not always local -- put the ocean stuff in the travel section, the energy section.

Jeff: It can't all be locally done, although you do need to engage local citizens. Someone, at the national level, has to move the ball forward. I do think that groups like Pew can be leaders, especially if they retain their credibility. Anytime you see environmental groups and businesses partnering, well, something's happening there. As a reporter, a flag goes up -- I want to find out what's going on there. But I also agree that scientists do have to watch yourself when you become advocates. Another flag goes up.

But scientists DO have a role. They provide the science behind a problem. Then other people bring forward a policy solution, and scientists can have a role in evaluating the efficacy of those proposed solutions.

Andy Pershing: I think there's an issue in how science is reported. Scientists don't create problems. Science is the process by which you go about figuring out how the world works. I think you guys are covering scientists as if we're in the business of finding problems. That's not what we do.

Brian: but isn't there a middle ground -- can't you explain your study and it's implications, and at least suggest or point a reporter towards places to find solutions?

Jon: But you have to be really careful. You can be misrepresented by a journalist -- you can suggest that there are solutions out there, and

Comment (no nametag-- Charlie Colgan?): Science IS advocacy: the topic you choose to go after is because you see a problem out there, and you suggest that there's a value in finding the answer. There are millions of things to study -- there's a value judgment embedded in the very act of choosing what to study.

Priscilla: This is really interesting. Scientists have to believe in what they are doing -- that their research has implications to the world. I don't think a passion for what you're doing, and a deep and abiding belief that your research has meaning and value and implications in the world beyond peer-review, that shouldn't be considered advocacy. And to those of us who are advocates, it's fundamentally important that scientists' information is out there.

Dan Holland: The information that often gets out is an oversimplified version of what is necessarily very complex and very uncertain. One reason scientists are reluctant to get information out there is because the complexity, subtlety, and nuance is often lost. I've been really successful in not getting quoted by reporters because what I have to say is too complex.

Justin: Is that success? I understood that the conversation from yesterday had an element of a sense of failure -- we haven't done a good enough job in communicating to the public and policymakers.

Peter Lord
: you don't have to, as a scientist, pay attention to who you talk to, who you can trust, and how to explain things. You need a knowledgeable public relations person and public affairs person who can help you out, tell you how the media works, and make sure your scientists aren't always nervous and hesitant to talk to the media. Too often, it's a person in their twenties who's got a drab background from a second-rate newspaper. Unlike Justin at the Pew Oceans Commission. You need high-level, policy-level public relations specialists at institutions who can help the scientists establish real working relations with the media.

William Brennan: I agree this is really interesting. I'm not sure the public is well-informed about the difference between established science and newly emerging, breakthrough science.

Jeff Tollefson: A public relations person can't handle this for you. If a PR person is talking to the media, you're not going to get the kind of coverage you want. In media, we don't have weeks, we have days, and we don't have pages, we have hundreds of words. You already know how to do this. We call it the elevator pitch. In the terms of your research, think about it as the dinner pitch. You go home, and talk to your family, your kids, and tell them what you're doing. This is what we've found. This is what we don't know. This is what we have to do next.

Don Perkins: That's not fair. The media will only do the first third. You cover "this is what we've found". Then you go looking for strong advocates and controversial details or statements. That's how your business works. Example: individually transferable quotas (for fishing) have good points and bad points -- there are winners and losers. Dan Holland did a good job articulating the subtlety and the implications of the whole question. We spent a day with a capable local reporter, but that's not what came out in the resulting story. What we got was one side of the implications, and quotes from people with strong advocacy positions on that one side..... The foundations have managed to pay and train scientists to speak, and that has been wildly successful at making oceans a public interest story. It's controversial, but it has been effective at bringing oceans to the mainstream. How do we train policymakers to anticipate and acknowledge the unintended consequences (of science research? of climate change? of media running away with the implications of science? missed it).

Brian: is more publicity for research always better?

Q: What is the role of investigative journalism on environmental reporting? I don't mean watching someone dumping toxins down a drain in the middle of the night. Example: the impact of a big local storm on two communities: one with a seawall and one without a seawall, and the decisions about permitting and environmental impacts of seawalls.

A: Peter Lord: I give out awards, Grantham, $75,000 for environmental reporting: there's still some great writing out there. But newspapers are under great pressure right now that we don't talk about. Everytime someone leaves they're not replaced. Advertising is moving to the internet.

Q: What's the future of media? If you guys can't even get your message out, what's the key media five years from now?
A: Jerry -- it's still print or subscription electronic media. But there's too much free information -- people still need and trust the editorial role in sorting and sifting information; that gives credibility. People pay for something, and that's implicit in value.
Q: Is that only true for people over 30?
A: Maybe. That's a fair point. We're on a voyage into the internet. We're a repository of information.
A: Brian -- the generation under 30 are far more influenced by one another than by the media, and by conversations. They clearly care about things, but there's chatter that starts to get amplified. But it still originates with mainstream media coverage: a MySpace page article will point to Slate or Salon or a Times article. Even if they're reading it on a MySpace page, their source is somewhere else.
A: Peter Lord: Slate broke the Walter Reed story and got no traction until the Washington Post covered it. There's tons of change, but no form of mainstream media has ever disappeared. Radio didn't go away when television came.
A: Jeff Tollefson: 5 years is still too soon. Ask us about 25 years and you'll stump all of us. Print media currently still has the best system for gathering news. How it's distributed may change, but how it's gathered and paid for is pretty effective.

Q: Rita: how does the way a story is told/advocated in the mainstream press impact how funding decisions are made?

A: Article by Ray Hilborn: Faith Based Fisheries about funding and publications. When dangerous research gets out there, (flawed methodology, advocacy, overreaching conclusions, etc), it harms good research. But a lot of times it gets out there and gets covered and refutations don't get the same coverage that the original research did.

Q: Is it good or bad for science to have its dirty laundry out there, to have arguments of

Q: Do journalists give too much deference to peer review?
A: Peter: I don't give too much credence to that stuff -- it's not local. Jerry: I think mainstream media falls all over themselves when they see that something is peer reviewed.

Q: Sean Mahoney: I'm interested in tying in the scientists' interest in getting their work considered in policy and law, with the problems attached to credibility that comes with being perceived as an advocate.

A: Jon S.: I think the answer is what Jeff suggested: wait to play a role in evaluating solutions

Q: Sean: but isn't that too late -- Priscilla pointed out that economists aren't often invited to think about solutions until the Environmental Impact Statement stage -- and so science doesn't get to play a part in determining which solutions should be on the table to be considered?

A: Robert: There is often an implied advocacy that comes in my work: I evaluate non-market values, and sometimes I find myself saying there's a big source of value that's not being addressed here, or I say, here's how the analysis changes if you do this or that or change a variable. But the next stage in the conversation with reporters, policymakers, etc., is for people to say, well, what will work best, who should do it well, what's the big message, how do we fix the system? I want to pull back and limit what I'm saying to my research, but the media are asking you to take the next step, and they want to pull you into advocacy. It's really hard.

Q: How do scientists who are called to testify act?
A: Scientists are called on the Hill to testify all the time. When I'm reporting on the Hill, I talk to a scientist, and I push them, too. I always ask, "What next"? You can't just tell me "what" -- that's not enough of a story. You can't answer that, and keep your credibility, but you'll always get pushed into the "what next", so you have to be prepared for that.

Scientists who talk on the Hill have to be able to carry the ball forward. You have to speak English, and you have to be clear, and you have to expect to be pushed by people without any scientific background into providing simplified solutions, and know how to sidestep that. But you can't just do your science and leave it on the table. The cat will get it.

Q: How qualified are reporters to do science writing -- not many journalists have degrees from MIT?
A: Peter Lord: There are programs all over the country trying to teach journalists science. Although not a lot of institutions can pay for the training. But most journalists are generalists: Example -- a fellow from Bangor Daily News who was here yesterday morning, then had to drive 2 hours to go cover a hearing, before his day was done.
Q: Do the places that journalists get trained do a good job?
A: We have to write interesting stories that compete with the Patriots! We can't go on and on about we don't know this, we don't know that. The editor is asking, is the bay clean or not? Can you eat the fish or not?
A: Jerry: nuance is a tough sell in the mainstream media. There may be an upper echelon that cares a lot about all the uncertainties, but you have to write for most people. So your job is to translate the false positives and false negatives and the uncertainties into language the reporter can easily make and fit into a compelling story.
A: Peter: example: meningitis went up in RI, but it wasn't a huge amount -- from 12 people to 20. So the legislature were trying to figure out what to tell people to do, given that they weren't sure about what caused the bump. So they held a hearing and they told people that if they had insurance they should take their kids to get screened -- not urgent, but a good precaution. But a reporter asked one of the doctors, who was also a mother, at the hearing, "What would you do if one of your children had a fever." And answering as a mother, she said, "I'd lie awake beside my daughter and take her temperature every hour." And the reporter printed that and it caused a panic in the state -- everyone flocked to the state to be vaccinated and by the time it was done it cost the state millions of dollars, all for a miniscule increase in risk. But when you make something human like that, people respond in a different way.

Q: Article: Altered Oceans. It did a great job taking complexity and making it good -- go check it out.

Comment: Patten: The oceans aren't a local issue. Every town is an ocean town. We're missing the boat as a society here. Every time I've written an Op Ed piece, it's gotten published. If we're going to get Congress to do things, we need to take action. But you need to establish local credibility. You have to do the work so that when a senator or congressman is trying to figure out what to do, they'll call you up and ask for your opinion. Everyone wants to hear about backgrounds, but not take local action if it will cost them something.

Jeff Tollefson: The Washington DC Spin

Jeff Tollefson tells us how much life has changed in the last 6 months. Covering Congress in a new administration is crazy different. Same issues. Many of the same players. And many of the same players are advocating the same positions. But the momentum is different, the balance of power is different, and every passing week makes him realize how different this climate change issue is being discussed, acted on, and covered by the new administration.

He tells us about the political process. Republicans weren't giving climate change much attention until business interests began to anticipate a Democratic regime -- and worrying about it. Business actors starting pushing for Congress to pass climate change regulations while there were still

Al Gore did not make this wave. He is riding this wave. When the Democrats arrived in Washington people started knocking at the door -- automotive companies saying they wanted to talk about climate change. Business needs to be able to plan; they know change and regulations are coming, so they want to be at the table to discuss it.

Jeff predicts a sudden reversal in the debate in a year or two. He thinks industry will be pushing for climate legislation and the environmentalists will say no. The key number is 60, he says. (He is immersed in DC lingo and the mechanics of political action -- for those of us who aren't in the habit of thinking about balance of power, open seats, and personalities, who is vulnerable and who is not, the code he is speaking takes a minute to sink in.) You mean the environmentalists will want to hold out for even stronger legislation, asks Brian? Bingo. Dems and environmentalists will think that they'll have an even more supportive regime in a couple of years.

Brian: Legislation is slow to develop, and legislators are slow to act. But businesses need an environment of certainty, they need to plan, and they need to act on shorter timescales. So what's the role of the private sector at the table here? Justin, what do you see as the role of big business?
Justin: Big biz is definitely a player. Pew is a partner with 10 CEOs in this emerging project. www.us-cap.org . These partnerships may appear unusual, but we are coming together. We can't wait for the legislators. Every week you hear of more partnerships -- McDonald's is with Greenpeace in the Amazon. Maybe there's some self-interest involved (end-running legislation, "greenwashing") but I also think these are legitimate efforts. People want to improve the environment.

Jerry Fraser: The Fisherman's Perspective

Jerry Fraser was a fisherman for 7+years, and now works at National Fisherman magazine, an industry trade magazine. The magazine covers a lot of science, but is primarily focused on the viability of the fisheries -- and that includes both fish and people, policy and science.

Jerry's role on this panel is to be a contrarian. He's telling us about regular folks -- what the fishermen think, and what he thinks.

He is skeptical about climate change. It's happening, he acknowledges, but he doesn't know whether it's a fluctuation or a trend. I don't know whether it's been resolved as fact, even though it seems like it's been resolved in the minds of a lot of people in this room. We're always going to live in a changing, fluctuating climate; I'm not convinced we know what it is, where on a bumpy line we fall.

He says that science loses its credibility when it moves toward advocacy. The fishing industry will respect you more if you play the data straight: don't venture too far from fact. (So how does that square with the idea of offering solutions when you offer problems, like Justin Kenney just suggested?)

Be wary of the media. It's not easy for guys to get stories straight. You need to make sure we get it -- we may run away with what you're trying to say.

Jerry chides Peter for calling Senator Inhofe stupid. If you come off as opinionated and dismissive, people aren't going to listen to you.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them change. People act in their own self-interest, but sometimes they can't even be bothered to go to a meeting that will affect them next year. Forget about them taking action for something that might or might not happen for 200 years. I know you guys think there's a sense of urgency here, but be patient. People change slowly.

Peter Lord: Politics and Science

Peter Lord is talking now. He tells us how smart governor John Chafee was about getting climate change on the agenda of local reporters. The governor would hold hearings, because reporters don't have anything to report on (e.g. general story about climate change) if there's not a hearing. He knew how to keep climate change in the news. He contrasts that with the regime that followed: Inhofe climate change speech -- required reading for all scientists.

I'm laughing right now, and it's interfering with my typing. Peter pulls no punches: Senator Inhofe is stupid. He wants us to read the climate change speech that Inhofe gave not too long ago. What a long fall from governor Chafee to Senator Inhofe!

New administrations and new regimes who take action give reporters something to write about. Reporters need to respond to editors, who want ACTION and local angles. They need something human. They need anecdotal stories -- the local guy who convinces Wal-Mart to install and promote fluorescent lights. You need to hold conferences, hearings or have events in order for long term trends in science to become "news" -- this is what drives editors.

Sports Illustrated, Ms. Magazine, Verdant Magazine -- covering climate change, 400+ stories about Earth Day on the AP -- now a lot of people are writing about the environment, particularly climate change. It's gone mainstream. This is because the political environment has changed.

Peter is a fast-talking firebrand, but his talk is over quickly.