Making Climate HOT

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsLisa DillingSusanne C. Moser is a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Change's Institute for the Study of Society and Environment (ISSE) in Boulder, CO. She is a geographer by training, and her research foci for the last 10 years have been the human dimensions of global change. Her current research interests include effective climate change communication and social change, interactions between scientists and stakeholders (in particular, decisionmakers), coastal impacts of climate change and effective adaptation strategies, and health impacts of climate change. During a post-doctorate at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in the Global Environment Assessment project, Moser became particularly interested in the science-policy interaction. She also worked for the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, DC, on a congressionally mandated project on coastal erosion and management. From 1999–2003, Moser was staff scientist for climate change for the Union of Concerned Scientists, managing projects on climate change impacts and working in the trenches of effective climate change communication and social mobilization for change. She may be reached at smoser@ucar.edu.Lisa Dilling is a visiting fellow with the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder. Her current research focuses on the use of science-generated carbon-cycle information in policy and decisionmaking. More generally, she is interested in the intersection between science and policy, especially topics such as the scales of information needed and used, the institutional barriers to better use of information, and the decisionmaking process used to set priorities for research to serve societal needs. Dilling previously worked as a program manager for a national carbon-cycle science program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where she studied the oceanic carbon cycle. She recently contributed an article related to her research to the Annual Review of Environmental Resources. She may be contacted via phone at (303) 735-3678 or via e-mail at ldilling@circs.colorado.edu. The authors thank Robert Kates for inviting them to write this article. He and the other editors of Environment provided very helpful feedback on an earlier draft. In addition, the authors received valuable feedback from Robert Harriss, Nancy Cole, Aaron McCright, Susan Watrous, and Anthony Leiserowitz. More fundamentally, this article draws on the thoughtful discussions that took place in June 2004 at a workshop in Boulder, CO (see http://www.isse.ucar.edu/changeworkshop/index.html). The authors are deeply indebted to all participants for their expertise, wisdom, and inspiration. They will add depth to the ideas presented here in a forthcoming anthology on climate change communication and social change (edited by the authors). The authors gratefully acknowledge funding for the project from The MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Walter Orr Roberts Institute and Institute for the Study of Society and Environment (formerly known as the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group). The opinions expressed herein, and any persistent faults, remain the authors own.