The real reason scientists downplay the risks of climate change | Dale Jamieson, Michael Oppenheimer and Naomi Oreskes

Climate deniers often accuse scientists of exaggerating the threats associated with the climate crisis, but if anything they're often too conservative

Although the results of climate research have been consistent for decades, climate scientists have struggled to convey the gravity of the situation to laypeople outside their field. If anything, the wider public only recently seems to have awakened to the threat of the climate crisis. Why?

In our new book, Discerning Experts: The Practices of Scientific Assessment for Environmental Policy, we attempted to illuminate how scientists make the judgments they do. In particular, we wanted to know how scientists respond to the pressures, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, that arise when they know that their conclusions will be disseminated beyond the research community - in short, how scientists are affected when they know the world is watching.