Climate Change: Right Science, Now Get The Politics Right

The idea that a mounting weight of scientific evidence would gradually overwhelm ideological opposition to the climate policy regime is not just false but backwards. The crucial point here is that no amount of reform of the IPCC, or rooting out of bad science — or of scientists behaving badly — will begin to correct the flaws in the dominant approach to climate policy. Rehabilitation of climate policy is a matter not of getting the science right, but of getting the politics right.

--Daniel Sarewitz, Nature, 4 March 2010

Daniel Sarewitz is Professor of Science and Society and Co-Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University. His work focuses on revealing the connections between science policy decisions, scientific research and social outcomes.