Climate Science – Advocacy & Activism, with David Grinspoon

About This Episode

Can you be a scientist and an activist? Can you be an engaged citizen and still put out un-biased research? We explore these questions and more on this episode of StarTalk All-Stars featuring astrobiologist and host David Grinspoon, a.k.a. Dr. FunkySpoon, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and Dr. Gavin Schmidt, climatologist and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. You’ll learn about Gavin’s work as a climatologist and how he puts climate models together. Discover more about the accuracy of climate models and how we use them to study other planets. You’ll hear about Gavin’s first experience as a science communicator, how it evolved into the blog realclimate.org, and how to deal with attitudes and opinions that are outlandish when communicating science. We also discuss whether scientists have the responsibility to be activists: is science truly value-neutral? Do personal biases impact research and experiments? All that, plus, we discuss Carl Sagan’s activism against nuclear weapons and nuclear war, and ponder how to balance pessimism and optimism in this crazy, ever-changing world. 

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Climate Science – Advocacy & Activism, with David Grinspoon.