Professor Adam Frank, in a smart Op-Ed for The New York Times:
In 1989, when “climate change” had just entered the public lexicon, 63 percent of Americans understood it was a problem. Almost 25 years later, that proportion is actually a bit lower, at 58 percent.
The timeline of these polls defines my career in science. In 1982 I was an undergraduate physics major. In 1989 I was a graduate student. My dream was that, in a quarter-century, I would be a professor of astrophysics, introducing a new generation of students to the powerful yet delicate craft of scientific research.
Much of that dream has come true. Yet instead of sending my students into a world that celebrates the latest science has to offer, I am delivering them into a society ambivalent, even skeptical, about the fruits of science.
Frank goes on to detail the many examples in which the public has been misguided into believing non-existing controversies. A main reason for the recent distrust or dismissal of the process, in my view, revolves around the politicization of science and the media’s infatuation with false equivalency.