Climatologists say the frustrations include dealing with impatient politicians and the media, who often trivialize the issue, cast it falsely as a raging scientific debate, and demand quick answers and simple courses of action. And while many scientists see opportunities expanding for young researchers, others worry that once a politically expedient "solution" is reached to deal with the emissions of greenhouse gases--regardless of the state of the actual research--the funding bubble will burst, just as acid rain research funding did two years ago.
Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., is not intimidated by the pressures of public policy demands and media scrutiny. In his mind there are three types of scientists who gravitate to a hot research topic such as global warming. There are those who are passionately interested, those who will work in any field to solve a real-world problem--and ...
