Communicating Global Change Science to Society

The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) was established by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in 1969, to bring together natural and social scientists to identify emerging or potential environmental issues and to address jointly the nature and solution of global environmental problems.National governments and research scientists may be equally concerned with issues of global environmental change, but their interests - and their timelines - are not the same. Governments are often focused on short-term effects and local impacts of global phenomena. Scientists, on the other hand, are loath to engage in speculation about the specific consequences of large-scale environmental trends.How then can we translate scientific understanding of these trends into public policy?"Communicating Global Change Science to Society" examines the growing number of instances in which governments and scientists have engaged in research projects in which the goal is to inform policy decisions. It assesses these experiences and suggests their implications for future collaborations.The book begins with a discussion of interactions between science and policy, particularly as they relate to the broad significance of environmental change. It then addresses concerns that emerge from this discussion, including how scientific research results are communicated in democratic societies, the uses (and misuses) of scientific findings, and what the natural and social sciences could learn from each other.

Holm Tiessen is director of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and professor on leave from the Georg-August Universitat of Gottingen, Germany. Gerhard Breulmann, a terrestrial ecologist, is science officer at the IAI in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. Mike Brklacich is professor of geography and environmental studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and chairs the IAI's scientific advisory committee. Romulo S. C. Menezes is assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Energy at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil.