ABSTRACT
When wildlife ecologist Stan Temple decided to reconstruct the morning sounds of birdlife captured in the notes of Aldo Leopold some 70 years ago, at the ecologist’s iconic shack in south central Wisconsin, he knew he was onto something interesting but had no idea how dramatic the public response would be. On many mornings in the 1930s and 1940s, Leopold would rise before dawn, settle onto a bench near the shack-a former chicken coop converted into a rustic but beloved get-away cabin for his family of six-and spend a few minutes meticulously identifying the trills and squawks of awakening birds. Temple, a University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor of forest and wildlife ecology and now a senior fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation, enlisted the help of an acoustic ecologist to recreate a “soundscape” from those handwritten notes. The resulting five minutes of sound (www.news.wisc.edu/21058) is the first historical soundscape to be derived from a written account rather than a tape recording, noted Temple. The mix of species that Leopold heard back in the 1940 differs from those heard today thanks to many factors, including climate change. But most striking in the comparison is the human presence that overwhelms the twenty-first century soundscape. A recording taken at the shack today is dominated not by birdsong but by the rumble of cars speeding along a nearby freeway. Temple’s soundscape captured national attention, and he was inundated with requests for interviews. Although he admits the experience was time consuming, Temple also feels that interactions with journalists and the public are an important part of his work as a scientist. Is Stan Temple unusual in this respect, or does his embrace of public communication and engagement typify scientists generally or, perhaps, environmental scientists more specifically? This chapter will try to answer those questions, first with a brief look at the history of the relationship between scientists and the public and then, through the lens of available literature, by drawing a twenty-first century portrait of that relationship. But first, let me give away the denouement. While the historical record paints a picture of a sometimes tense and volatile relationship between scientists and both journalists and the public, data gathered over several decades suggest that the relationship is cyclical and that today’s scientists are engaging in increasingly productive interactions with reporters and lay audiences. Further, environmental scientists may serve as the poster children for this rapprochement with the public, thanks to the explosion of interest in environmental issues among publics and policy makers over the past 50 years. That said, though, a relationship that-way back in the nineteenth century-might have characterized the scientist as one among equals-remains strongly hierarchical today, with scientists repeatedly affirming their status as “experts” who believe in a mandate to “educate” the public.
