A newly released “essential resource” for journalists, scientists, and educators working with climate change science issues describes journalists/scientists dialogues that took place in a series of nationwide workshops with support from the National Science Foundation.*

Published by the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, housed at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, the paperback reports on top climate scientists’ and journalists’ exchanges over a period of more than four years on challenges in communicating through the media on climate science and related climate issues.

It includes an extensive report also on discussions among top climate scientists and leading metropolitan executive and top editors that was conducted at the start of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ (SEJ) annual conference at Stanford University in October 2007.

Commenting on the book, Communicating on Climate Change: An Essential Resource for Journalists, Scientists, and Educators, workshop participant and Stanford University climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider called it “an indispensable tool for helping journalists learn from climate change experts, and climate change experts in return to learn from journalists, on cutting communication issues involved in informing the public on the most critical environmental issue of the 21st Century.”

A downloadable PDF of the book (5.6 MB) is available online at
www.metcalfinstitute.org/Communicating_ClimateChange.htm . A limited number of printed copies is expected to be available from the Metcalf Institute at the beginning of December. Individual copies of the report are available free-of-charge, with shipping and handling expenses of $8. An order form containing information on ordering more than one copy of the 74-page paperback also is available from Metcalf.

Edited by Metcalf Institute Executive Director Sunshine Menezes, the workshop project and the book itself (ISBN 978-1-60725-447-8) were funded by the Paleoclimate Program, Division of Atmospheric Sciences, National Science Foundation.

*EDITOR’S NOTE / DISCLOSURE: The book was written by Bud Ward, editor of The Yale Forum, based on a workshop series managed by Anthony D. Socci, Ph.D., and Ward with the Metcalf Institute as NSF Principal Investigator.