Dominique Bachelet: Citizen Science and Climate Change
The post, "Help them discover it within themselves," by Dominique Bachelet, Senior Climate Change Scientist at the Conservation Biology Institute, emphasizes the importance of citizen science in public understanding of climate change.
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has released survey results that show that while 84% of the scientists surveyed (2500 US scientists) say human activities are causing our planet's atmosphere to warm, only 56% of the public thinks they do.
These numbers are symptomatic of the inability of the scientific community to communicate to the public at large the robust results that emanate from their on-going research activities on climate change. ...
Fortunately, several groups around the world are now trying to bring to land managers and the general public the actual data that show how climate has been and will continue to affect our world. Galileo once said: We cannot teach people anything, we can only help them discover it within themselves.
Citizen science has been promoting the discovery by individuals of the changes that have occurred during their own lifetime. Making scientific data easily accessible and documenting change will likely improve communication and shorten the gap between scientific community and the general public.
