Podcast of the Week: Reveal: “Silencing Science”
Climate change has been a burning issue that has been brought up more often nowadays than ever before. It’s almost inevitable that you’ll see a shared post on Facebook about saving the turtles or finding replacements for plastic straws such as paper/stainless steel straws to make a change in order to save our home, Earth.
So that’s why I chose “Reveal” as the podcast of the week for “Silencing Science”
Summary:
The podcast “Reveal,” released an episode called “Silencing Science” covering Maria Caffrey, a climate scientist’s, conflict with those who were not allowing her to publish her report on climate change. It provided calculations for any risks for the 118 national parks that are exposed to rising seas. This was sent to national park managers for editing and peer review and they delayed publishing it until September 2016. It continued to be delayed from September 2016 to March of 2018. Between that time, her report was edited extensively with the result of eighteen different drafts and numerous changes. Frustrated, Maria encountered many officials who were trying to convince her to accept the edits they made on her report. Yet, these edits took out any terms related to human activities or any claims of anthropogenic climate change, hiding or censoring the fact that anthropogenic climate change has affected national parks, which is challenging the park’s managers. She rejected every single edit because that would mean she would be violating the policies of the Scientific Integrity Act. This policy forbids any manipulation or censorship of scientific research. Due to her not giving in, she finally got to publish her report by suing the park service under the Freedom of Information Act. Even though some information from the report was removed, she managed to have her research released to the public.
My thoughts:
To be quite honest, I am not at all shocked that these officials were trying to hide her research on climate change that claimed it was due to anthropogenic activity. If anything, I was shocked that she managed to get it released even though it seemed to be risky. I find that it is difficult and risky to “blame” or claim anything is caused by humans especially when it negatively impacts businesses that are polluting the air or filling any body of water with oil. Even asking anyone to make a change in order to save this home of ours is difficult. Consider Kip Anderson, the director of the film “Cowspiracy,” who made a risk in releasing it. Imagine how the meat industry would react to such a film. In the end, both of their scientific research was not kept silent and created awareness of our actions.
Link to podcast: http://www.revealnews.org/episodes/silencing-science/