John Abraham and Scott Mandia - Climate Science Strikes Back

Host: Chris Mooney

For the community of scientists who study the Earth’s climate, these are bewildering times.

They've seen wave upon wave of political attacks. They're getting accustomed to a public that grows more skeptical of their conclusions even as scientists grow more confident in them.

No wonder there’s much frustration out there in the climate science world—and now, a group of researchers have organized to do something about it. Their initiative is called the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, and it pledges to organize dozens of researchers to help set the record straight.

But can scientists really maintain a war room? What would that look like? How far can they go in fighting back against misinformation, without leaving themselves politically exposed?

To answer these questions, Point of Inquiry called up two of the initiative's founders: John Abraham and Scott Mandia.

John Abraham is an associate professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has some 80 published papers, conference papers, and patents to his name.

Scott Mandia is a professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in Selden, New York. He runs the “Global Warming Fact of the Day” group on Facebook, and is known as @AGW_Prof on Twitter.