Video description

What motivates someone to read the scientific literature and pick the brains of scientists so that they can inform the public? Why spend so much time on doing that? There is a story behind every single science communicator that answers these questions.

This motivated me to ask science communicators these questions. Of course I expected the answer that they love science, even if they might not be a scientists. And that they love communicating this to the public. But they also shared stories on how and why they became a science communicator. It's these stories that had interesting, and sometimes funny, anecdotes. Some stories surprised me with what lead to someone becoming a science communicator.

The first science communicator that I interviewed is John Cook who is the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He also founded skepticalscience.com in 2007, a website that examines the arguments of the global warming ‘sceptics’. In this interview Cook talks about what led to him becoming a science communicator.

Media resources

Interviews filmed in collaboration with University of Queensland and Skeptical Science. Full interviews available April 2015 in ‘Making Sense of Climate Science Denial‘.

Camera B interview footage provided by Peter Sinclair of Climate Denial Crock of the Week and Yale Climate Connections.