Hi Dawn,
You might take a look at Donella Meadows' excellent book _Thinking in
Systems_. One of her examples of a positive feedback loop ("vicious cycle")
is how she and her brother used to fight when they were kids: he would push
her, she pushed back harder, he pushed back harder yet, and soon an actual
fight would break out.
Jane Shevtsov
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Dawn Stover <dsto...@hughes.net> wrote:
> "Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas" is a meme that has been
> around for at least 15 years (I first heard it from people in the
> automotive industry), although I thought it had run its course by now.
> There are plenty of websites that offer factual responses (one example is
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-change-Water-vapor-makes-for-a-wet-argument.html),
> but they often take the form of a counter-argument and thus are perceived
> as "political." And too often they're a slog for non-scientists.
>
> As a science journalist, I'd love to hear some fresh ideas about how to
> "show" scientific concepts like positive feedback loop to the general
> public. (Journalism is all about showing, rather than telling.) Here are a
> few things to keep in mind:
>
> - Images and graphs are seen as less political than words.
> - Stories are more memorable than numbers.
> - Analogies and metaphors can be powerful.
> - Examples from everyday life can help make science relevant.
> - Humans tend to be interested in other humans.
> - Cultural affiliation affects how people perceive certain types of
> information and sources.
> - Humor is usually appreciated.
> - Journalists have a different role than educators and researchers.
>
> I enjoyed reading about the creative, respectful ways that some of you
> respond to individuals you meet. How can those approaches be applied to
> larger audiences? And which scientists out there are doing the best job of
> communicating with the general public about climate change?
>
>
> Dawn Stover
> Independent Writer & Editor
> 1208 Snowden Road
> White Salmon, WA 98672
>
> tel: 509 493 3652
> email: dsto...@hughes.net
> web: www.dawnstover.com
>
> Contributing Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
> Contributing Editor, Popular Science
>
--
-------------
Jane Shevtsov, Ph.D.
Mathematical Biology Curriculum Writer, UCLA
co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org
"In the long run, education intended to produce a molecular geneticist, a
systems ecologist, or an immunologist is inferior, both for the individual
and for society, than that intended to produce a broadly educated person
who has also written a dissertation." --John Janovy, Jr., "On Becoming a
Biologist"
