The Climate Science Rapid Response Team - A Effective Model for Engaging Media and Policymakers

As of July 2018, there were over 140 documented attempts by the current Trump Administration to silence science. These actions included, among others, government censorship, self-censorship, budget cuts, personnel changes, research hindrance, and bias and misrepresentation of scientific studies. For policy to be effective, it must be guided by evidence-based research and that research must be protected, respected, and widely disseminated.

One unique approach to do so is reflected by the Climate Science Rapid Response Team (CSRRT) formed in 2010. The mission of this organization is to provide accurate and rapid information on climate-science topics to policy-makers and the media. The CSRRT currently consists of approximately 160 climate scientists whose members cover the sub-disciplines of climate change and include not only the natural sciences but also economics and policy.

Since its formation, the CSRRT has fielded hundreds of inquiries from institutions that include The Associated Press, ABC, CBS, CNN, BBC, New York Times, Time of London, National Public Radio, The Guardian, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, as well as The White House and both Houses of the U.S. Congress. Members of the CSRRT have been asked to provide quotations for news stories and they have also been asked to give radio, television, and print-media interviews. About a third of the members of the CSRRT have undergone media training to help encourage the use of jargon-free language and proper framing so that clear communication with various stakeholders can be more successful.

Here the authors show how this model can be ported to any discipline where the expert community wishes to engage to affect evidence-based policy.