There is a lot of bad information about global climate change floating around the atmosphere.
Two ASU professors have volunteered to clean up the air as part of the new Climate Q&A Service, sponsored by the American Geophysical Union, a resource for journalists to get questions answered about climate science by experts on the matter.
The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists with more than 50,000 members from across the globe.
The two professors from ASU are Ariel Anbar and Hilairy Hartnett, both in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. They joined more than 700 other AGU members in organizing the service, which launched Wednesday and will run through at least the third week in January.
“There is a lot of inaccurate information about climate science out there,” said Peter Weiss, public information manager at AGU. “We want journalists to be able to get good information quickly and easily.”
The 700 doctorate level climate scientists, who all offer different perspectives on the field, will answer journalists’ questions through a shared e-mail inbox in groups of no more than 10 between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, Weiss said.
The answers they give will reflect each group’s views and research, and not the research or views of AGU. The service is nonpartisan, offering just the facts on climate science.
The project is a re-launch of the 10-day service that was offered during the UN Climate Conference last December in Copenhagen. During the 10 days, the service received 54 inquires from 27 different media outlets, Weiss said.
“We’re providing an inbox where journalists can send their questions and have scientists answer them,” Weiss said. He added that he hopes the service reaches as many journalists as possible in an effort to weed out bad information.
Anbar joined the service because of inaccuracies in media coverage on global warming.
“Some journalists are not fully informed on climate science,” Anbar said. He added that he hopes having this organized resource for journalists will help better inform them.
On some occasions, Anbar said, journalists unknowingly over-represent extreme scientific opinions in the media. While every opinion in science has to be considered, journalists need to give more credence to the majority opinions in climate science, Anbar said.
“This service should improve the quality of information out there,” Anbar said. He added that the service offers climate science rather than climate policy, in an effort to remain nonpartisan.
“To write a story about global warming, I would have to do a lot of background research,” journalism freshman Joey Martin.
Martin added he would use any resource available to him.
At this time, AGU has no plans to extend the service to reach the general public. The idea, Weiss said, is that AGU will reach the general public through the conduit that journalists provide.
Anbar is looking forward to doing his part to present accurate information to the public.
“Journalists have a lot of influence on what the public thinks,” he said. “These are basic science questions, which we can answer pretty cleanly.”
Reach the reporter at alex.ferri@asu.edu
