I’ve been thinking about why so much of the good information out there doesn’t get used by people who would benefit from it. As a scientist focused on adapting natural resource management to climatic change, I’ve been party to plenty of discussion along the lines of “how do we get managers/policy-makers/other decision-makers to actually use our science?” People create portals, or GIS layers, or policy-friendly syntheses of the technical literature, but do these solve the problems they’re intended to address? I also hear plenty of managers, policy-makers, etc. saying they needed more data, down-scaled climate projections, etc. in order to make decisions. But—it seemed like the connection still wasn’t being made.
What gives?
I’ve come to think that the fundamental issue isn’t so much that data don’t exist, or that people don’t know about the data or don’t have access to it (although those can all certainly be problems), but that people and organizations often don’t have a good framework for making use of the information that’s out there.
If the goal is to have smart, climate-informed conservation and resource management action, we need smart, climate-informed decision making. This blog is an exploration of the nexus between decision science, climate science, and any other wild and wacky thinking that provides useful insight. Looking forward to the conversation!