ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Dr. Gerry Wheeler, Executive Director of NSTA, has posted a response  
to the issues raised in the Wash. Post article at http://www.nsta.org/ 
pressroom&news_story_ID=52959.








On Nov 28, 2006, at 2:54 PM, Marc Taylor wrote:

ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
institutions.
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I put the subject line as "An Inconvenient Truth" because "Al Gore's  
Film" seemed to be adding fuel to the fire. Here goes:

Here in New York, we are not far from The Goddard Institute for Space  
Studies, where the storied James Hansen crunches his numbers. I could  
imagine inviting him to an event, and I'm sure the subject of his run- 
in with the administration would come up. But the IPCC and the  
underlying science seems to be behind Hansen's interpretations, and I  
would hope that that would be the message of the day.

I would suggest that, rather than simply show the film, you show  
excerpts from the film and bring in your own educators to illustrate  
certain points, and invite scientists to discuss the topic. Turn it  
into a larger and deeper event. Just don't go the "Fair and Balanced"  
route and try to get one milquetoast skeptic and one frothing  
doomsayer on your panel. The presence of thoughtful researchers will  
help to quiet cries of bias or virulent liberality. Rush Limbaugh and  
would decry it anyway, but you'll never make that man happy (well, I  
can think of one way you could, but it involves packing his christmas  
stocking with... oh, never mind)

Most climate scientists are quite alarmed by what's going on, are  
very eager to communicate what they have found, but still will admit  
uncertainties. This has always been the fustration of politicians,  
who don't like how scientific advisors qualify everything. A  
politician's job is to make decisions, and don't like all this "on  
the one hand..". and "or the other hand..." stuff. Thus the joke that  
they would just once like to meet a one-handed scientist.

There are plenty of discoveries which did not make it into the film.  
The possible *mechanical* breakup of the Greenland ice sheet, by  
gravity slide lubricated with rapidly mobile meltwater, is a recent  
discovery and makes the submergence of Shanghai a closer prospect.  
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is a complicating factor which  
I don't think was detailed.

As science centers, we have to approach complex and possibly  
controversial topics, and not just because it draws visitors with the  
"forbidden fruit" of touchy subjects. "If not us, who..." But rather  
than just show the film, do what we are best at -- take people by the  
hand, bring together the public, educators, and scientists, and get  
the inner workings of science out into the open.

Oh... and speaking of Apple computers: Gore is on the board of Apple,  
uses a Mac laptop, and uses Keynote, not Powerpoint. Of course, at  
this point it's probably like getting people to say "electrostatic  
facsimile" rather than "Xerox copy." And I say that as someone who  
wishes I could just skip ALL this silicon hollafaulta and send  
messages by owl.

Marc Taylor
Coordinator, Andrus Planetarium
Hudson River Museum
511 Warburton Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10701
914 963 4550 x223
Fax 963 8558
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