The poor understanding of science by the public and key policymakers has been regular complaint of scientists for a very long time. It seems to become a ever bigger item at gatherings of every scientific society. Each society endeavors to create vehicles for communicating the most important knowledge of its members to the general public through brochures, reports, web sites, etc. <\/p>\n
And yet, as we all know, nothing seems to get much better. The public debate over climate change, ongoing attempts to advance \u2210Intelligent design\u2211 and \u2210Creation Science\u2211 and a new Creation Museum<\/a> are more than just individual issues to respond to; they are a clear statement that the scientific community<\/u> (emphasis on \u2210community\u2211) needs to be more unified, systematic, and above all, effective in communicating to the public.<\/p>\n One example of extremely effective communication, albeit with no real quality control, is Wikipedia<\/a>, a 6-year-old, free (an ad-free too) online encyclopedia with nearly 2 million articles in English and over 3 million articles in other languages. Wikipedia<\/a> is the 9th most popular website in the world (since, I know that you are wondering, Yahoo<\/a>, MSN<\/a> and Google<\/a> are the top three). Wikipedia had just under 43 million unique visitors in the just the month of January this year, and it\u2019s popularity continues to grow.<\/p>\n If only we could be a fraction as effective in communicating science.<\/p>\n One project that is taking a page from Wikipedia\u220ds play book is the Earth Portal<\/a> (www.EarthPortal.org<\/a>) a free resource, launched in late April, for timely, objective, science-based information about the environment built by a global community of experts. The Earth Portal offers:<\/p>\n The most interesting part about the Earth Portal<\/a> is that it is designed to be a vehicle for the scientific\/scholarly community to collectively communicate what they know to a global audience of non-experts. Any expert can request to become a contributor to the Earth Portal, just submit a CV, and receive a username (actually it\u220ds your real name, in the cause of transparency) and a unique password, and you are in. Some are requested to be Topic Editors in the area of their particular expertise. Some write new material, but most are simply reusing existing materials written for lectures, presentations or some other purpose, provided that it doesn\u220dt violate copy right laws.<\/p>\n And its not just individual experts; government agencies, scientific societies, NGOs with science expertise, and so forth are also contributing to the Earth Portal<\/a>. Any individual or organization committed to communicating science-based, objective information on the environment is welcolm. There is an impressive International Advisory Panel<\/a> (well of course there would be wouldn\u220dt there.)<\/p>\n An open-membership Environmental Information Coalition, with the National Council for Science and the Environment as its Secretariat (and here I come clean, I\u220dm the Executive Director of the Council) is the motive force behind the Earth Portal<\/a>. The Environmental Information Coalition is intended as a vehicle for the scientific\/scholarly\/expert community which collective sets policies and makes decisions.<\/p>\n\n