The Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit (CURRU) has scored another major victory this week in the ongoing struggle for accurate journalism, with the submission made to the British Press Complaints Commission by a working Climate Change Scientist, Simon Lewis, concerning poor treatment of rainforest Science by Jonathan Leake of The Sunday Times :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/24/sunday-times-ipcc-amazon-rainforest
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/leakegate_scientist_fights_bac.php
For this, Simon Lewis deserves a strong cup of herbal tea and several congratulatory back thumps, and a glorious badge of honour, which I shall personally craft myself from twigs, leaves and spiderwebbings.
It’s time that the Media took a long hard look at itself in the proverbial mirror, and gave more airtime and column inches to working Scientists. Proper airtime and column inches, that Scientists speak and write themselves.
I expect to see a major series of articles by John Houghton and James Hansen before long in every major newspaper. One article a month from a working Scientist, slipped in to the newspapers somewhere randomly, is not enough to maintain the flow of the narrative of Science for the benefit of the general population.
We need a “Daily Climate”, Scientists writing and speaking on every channel and website on a daily basis, not perfunctory treatment in documentaries. Climate Change is continually current, it’s real news and it’s a real set of genuinely problematic policy issues. The Media should reflect that by opening up their communications strategies to give a regular place to the ongoing Science, in depth and in plain English, with proper research and accessible references.