Part 3. Lessons learned

“I had the opportunity with regard to Galileo to draw attention … the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences.”

–Pope John Paul II

Before Saturday’s end, the tide of media coverage had shifted from reporting the erroneous 15% disappearance of ice, as though it was real fact, to reporting the scientists’ rejection of a false claim by an atlas publisher.  Only on a few blogs was it being played as a scientific blunder or a controversy among scientists, and even those people generally relied on scientists’ statements to point out the mistake. There was nothing controversial about it.  HC goofed up, plain and simple; that is what the media reported over the weekend and into the next week. This shift was made by the intervention of the scientific community to lay out the facts, and by the mainstream media clearly wanting to play the story as it should be—true to the facts.

Addressing the Cryolist and SPRI’s letter¹⁵, on Saturday, 17 Sep 2011, I captured some of the cryosphere community’s sense of the turning tide:  “This cartographic fiasco and sad journalistic event is a dark cloud made a little smaller, but there is the silver lining: everybody with striking results, especially new results, should push it to the media and use the Scott Polar letter as a hook.  Greenland itself is beautiful, the data are exquisite, the science is sound, the changes are profound, the meaning of it is important to people; and honest journalists– by far most of those who would be inclined to report on the "15% mistake"– will be wanting answers to the question of what IS happening.”

Many lessons stemmed from that sequence of events. Foremost for me was from John Vidal, a reporter for The Guardian, who first broke the story from the HC press release.  He responded to my initial criticism, which I had levied (wrongly on my part) equally on The Guardian and HC: “… It's actually quite hard to know what to do in these circumstances. We are not academically equipped to sort, sift and judge all the decisions made by Times's cartographers, … …  I am more than happy to write another piece saying that groups of eminent cryologists are in profound disagreement with the Times atlas … … But in this case please don’t blame the messenger!” 

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Part 2. Tackling misinformation in the 24-hour news cycle

“Lastly, I would address one general admonition to all; that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or fame, or power, or any of these inferior things; but for the benefit and use of life; and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from the lust of power that the angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.”

–Francis Bacon, 1620, Franciscus de Verulamio Summi Angliae Cancellaris Instauratio magna, in: Bacon, F., The Works, Part IV, J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D.D. Heath (eds.), London (1901).

Climate change denialism and trivialization, whether a result of scientific illiteracy and ignorance or something more willful (possibly conspiratorial among some practitioners), has its mirror in climate change exaggeration.  Both are harmful to public understanding of issues bearing on human well being, are harmful to the economy and national competitiveness, and are dangerous for the next generations. 

The formal story of the HC mistake and the response (including HC’s courageous and productive response) is told elsewhere,²  but it is worth adding to the record, mainly as guidance as to whether the scientific response to the bogus news story may serve as a model for the future. The upshot is that valuable lessons were learned and will be applied in the future, but future misinformation crises are not apt to be as ideally tailored to a speedy, positive outcome as this case was.  Indeed, the publisher has made amends with intensive consultations with scientists and a new map recently provided as an insert for their Atlas.  That is the happy end of the story.  It’s worth reviewing briefly a few details leading up to that ending which are not already covered in a formal peer-reviewed account.²  These details are primarily available in the semi-public record provided by the Cryolist (http://cryolist.org, a listserve, administered by glaciologist Todd Albert, for glaciologists and scientists in related fields, but available to reporters and other legitimate users and citizens who eschew abuse of the service).  I also add my personal perspective, which is mine only and does not necessarily reflect opinions of my employer, my funding source (NASA), my research colleagues, or the International Glaciological Society. 

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Part 1. The Truth is not an option (it’s mandatory)

By Jeffrey S. Kargel

Disclaimer: The following 5-part series represents my own opinions and responsibility. Quotations are likewise not necessarily my opinions, but are of those quoted. –JSK

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, 
nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.”

–Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, A Weekly Journal, 26 Feb. 1925.

On September 15, 2011, midnight London local time, the publisher HarperCollins (HC) released a marketing statement about their newly published 13^th Edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World (henceforth, the Atlas). The company marketed their renowned atlas via a press statement claiming an alarmingly high rate of loss of ice cover in Greenland¹; one-seventh of the microcontinent’s permanent glacial ice cover had melted, thus “turning Greenland green,” just in the 12-year interval since their previous Greenland mapping. HC had announced the most dramatic consequence of climate change yet documented; or so they thought. Unfortunately for HC’s book sales, but welcome news to everybody else who may have believed the news, the story was a grotesque (and accidental) exaggeration of a real retreat occurring roughly a factor of a hundred more slowly². 

It was a big mistake, but we all falter and sometimes fail. HarperCollins has not only apologized (albeit awkwardly), but took immense measures to rectify their mistake^3-5. For HarperCollins, surely the motive was to support their claims regarding the quality and time-vaunted credentials of their atlas⁶. Why then is this still a story and a vital lesson to heed and to be committed to full record? It is not for the debt of the mistake maker, but for the debt of those who would repeat the accidental mistake of exaggeration of climate change or its mirror opposite of trivialization of climate change.

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You all will recall the flurry of activity last autumn when the new Times Atlas of the World was published by HarperCollins and the unified response of the glaciological community to their marketing ploy. The publishers claimed to have spotted an alarmingly high rate of loss of ice cover in Greenland. This proved to be a mistake and a result of overzealous interpretaion of the publishers. Fortunately the glaciological community was 'on the ball' and the mistake was picked up immediately. Letters and e-mails were written and the end result was that HarperCollins apologized, and has taken measures to rectify their mistake. 

The glaciologists involded in pointing out the mistake and forcing the apology from HarperCollins banded together and wrote an article about the episode that was published in the online journal The Cryosphere last week. As a followup, the lead author, Jeff Kargel has written a five-part blog that will be published on the IGS web during the next few days.

The series is called 'The Truth is not an Option' with the subtitles 

Part 1. The Truth is not an option (it’s mandatory)
Part 2. Tackling misinformation in the 24-hour news cycle
Part 3. Lessons learned
Part 4. Have plenty of patience
Part 5.  No awards, no allowance for willful ignorance

I trust you will find this series informative and enlightening.

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