Among the skills that the staffers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science practice before their annual meeting, "crowd control" isn't normally listed. But it took a major effort to seat a thousand or more working scientists for Al Gore's address in Chicago. President Obama, just down the block for his annual junk food Valentine's date, must have had his ears burning as he got not only rounds of applause but became the focus of the hopes and dreams of the science community.
The group that meets annually at AAAS is an eclectic one; the presentations aren't as technical as they would be at disciplinary meetings. Here geologists sit and listen to biologists describe "jumping genes' while physicists stoop to learn a bit of social science. The group is dedicated to the public appreciation of science--a goal that hasn't gone far in the past decade.
A quick survey of the meeting over the past years can tell a lot. Recruiters from Shanghai and the EU have grown to far greater prominence. (In fact, this year while American agencies offered hard candy at their booths, the EU was pouring fine wine!)
It's also a group that loves high profile speakers. (I remember Leonard Nimoy scolding them in Los Angeles two decades ago, for neglecting to read the "tea leaves" about public apathy toward science. Today we read that half the nation doesn't believe in evolution!)
Gore began without his normal slides of glaciers and boiling frogs, reminding the audience that the nation's three crises--a crumbling economy, terrifying national security issues, and global warming, were all apiece. Forty percent of the world's people (in the most volatile areas of Asi0 get their water supply from Himalayan melt water, and that's disappearing. Fires almost brought down the government of Greece last summer, and governors of America's western states could be similarly imperiled.
Three crises; one cause. There was no way to prioritize them. At the root of all three was the world's scramble for the last of the world's fossil fuels, and that held the key to solving the crises as well.
Of course, slides followed: Most weren't really new. Perched polar bears and sinking Inuit villages have become the stuff of everyday conversation today. There were some new and ominous additions: extreme weather conditions like Iowa's 500 year flood last summer, the realization that the methane trapped in the melting polar ice could multiply our carbon emissions many times even without another coal-burning plant.
But what probably was new to the normally-cocooned scientists in the room was Gore's impassioned plea for activism. Each year scientists are scolded (if they attend) by at least a few of the invited guests for their reticence about getting politically active. (One can hardly blame them given the abuse they've taken in recent years, but that's no excuse.)
Gore was unequivocally supportive of Obama's new administration in science, and unabashedly emotional about the need for more public education in science.
The audience? Perhaps not as receptive to the cheerleading as one might have expected. I was surprised at the modified response in the elevator, at people who crowded into the room, but left their cell phones on and kept texting through the talk.
Scientists as communicators? We haven't trained most with these skills, and frankly, they don't seem enthusiastic to follow Gore's call. Blogs may become a new avenue for the young, but we certainly aren't there yet.