communication

Years of Living Dangerously, a big-budget, 9-episode TV documentary, tries to communicate the seriousness of climate change through personal stories and first-hand experiences of people across the globe. To make sure they get the science right, the producers collaborate with a panel of distinguished experts. We interviewed one of them: Dr. Katherine Hayhoe from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

Most folks know that I’m not usually a huge fan of big meetings.  They have great energy, but there’s so much going on that you can’t see or do everything you want to.  So I have to admit that as a first time attendee to the largest Earth and space science meeting in the world, I had some mixed feelings about going.

In a recent article, NASA Climate Scientist Gavin Schmidt explained that every scientist is an advocate, and asks provocatively what should we advocate for? The answer, all successful scientists must advocate for the use of resources to support their research, many of us through formal proposals to government agencies. We advocate on behalf of our students, colleagues, and programs in our universities, laboratories, or companies.

Here in the South Central region of the United States we are confronted with a slough of climate issues. The annual workshop for our regional Climate Science Center (SC CSC) was held this past November in Fort Worth, Texas. Annual workshops are designed to encourage collaboration among scientists and stakeholders within the South Central Climate Science Center. Participants are split into discussion groups where ideas are ironed out and the first steps for a research proposal are started.

Traveling to Suring, Wisconsin for the 3^rd annual Northeast Climate Science Center Fellows Retreat marked the first for my time with the consortium institutions—I was a rookie if you will. As we crossed underneath the YMCA U-Nah-Li-Ya’s entrance arch, the excitement in the air was palpable; we were going back to camp, bunk beds and all.

Something important is missing from your to-do lists, and it’s not what you think it is. As an early career scientist, you probably have more than one of these lists, like me. There’s a professional development to-do list, a “work-life balance” list, and a to-do list for outreach and mentoring of a new generation of scientists (not to mention the daily grind lists of writing, researching, grocery-shopping, etc.). I recently discovered that for years I’ve been overlooking something critical in these priorities. That something is art and creative expression.

This post is a collaborative effort drawing from the attendees of the 2^nd Annual Northeast Climate Science Center Fellows Retreat that took place in the Mark Twain National Forest in southern Missouri in 2014. The Early Career Climate Forum developed a module that charged the fellows to consider outreach and communication with a wide range of audiences and, in particular, to generate a blog post reflecting on their interactions with natural resource managers during retreat activities. Below, is a summary of their collective work.

This morning I’m sitting on my porch with my computer in my lap, sipping coffee from my Star Trek mug and enjoying the beautiful morning sky. I’m staring out over a temperate deciduous forest surrounding a beautiful lake, all beneath patches of clouds, the blue sky, and a faint moon descending over the horizon. What makes this even better is that I am near the middle of downtown Raleigh, NC surrounded by urban habitat and you can’t tell (at least not from this view).

 The biggest climate change news of 2015 has come from a rather unlikely source: The Vatican of Rome.