In the past week my research has taken a slight turn away from models and towards the people that make them and the other people that try to turn them into policy. Models are great and all but what is the practical use for them if not just the general public, but policy makers (who have the power to enact legislation in response to those models) don’t understand them.
As mentioned in previous posts, with impacts from global climate change already very apparent, there has been a renewed emphasis on action by local, state, federal, and global policy-makers and negotiators. The problem is that these actions need to be informed. From what can legislators base policy you ask? From scientific research. And by whom is scientific research done? By scientists! There’s only one problem, putting a policy-maker in a room with a scientist and asking them to hash things out is just as effective as trying to negotiate an international treaty on climate change (which is to say it is not at all effective). This is why scientists submit their work to other scientists in groups, like the International Panel on Climate Change, and those scientists decide what is important to tell policy makers and what is not.
This leads to a few questions: how is it decided what is in and what is out? What is the lag time between when new scientific research is completed and when policy makers hear about it? How much does science actually inform policy?
This TED Talk sheds some light on the media-side of the process.
That’s where I’m headed! Time to find some review sources.
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