by Chad Heeter

During the summers of my boyhood, the minute I heard the distant clang of the bell on the ice cream truck, I ran hard and fast. I handed over the 65 cents clutched in my hand for my beloved red-white-and-blue Bomb Pop. But in the steamy Missouri heat, the icy treat soon gave way, dripped, and slid down the popsicle stick. Anxious not to lose any of it, I quickly doubled my efforts. I licked and slurped with all of the tenacity an eight year-old boy could muster. The sultry heat soon defeated my best efforts, and half the popsicle would turn into a colorful stream of sugar-syrup and run down my forearm.

A similar wave of urgency came over me during two days of discussion on journalism and climate change. A group of scientists and science journalists got together in the library at University of California's Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to discuss each other's role in disseminating news about the problems the planet faces. One scientist summed up the planet's odds this way: "We're screwed."

Many others in the group appeared to share this view. The planet had received plenty of warning and collectively, we have failed to act meaningfully. Our Bomb Pop was well on its way to melting off the popsicle stick.

The consensus around the table was that publishers, editors, reporters, and producers now need to make science a new priority for the media. Scientists, too, will have to take a more active role in getting their message out -- maybe through opinion pieces, or blogging, or other strategies aimed at taking advantage of, and not just shrinking in the face of, new media realities brought about by the electronic age.

"It's the behavior of us, as a species, over the next 20 years that will determine the planet's next 400 years," said scientist Stephen H. Schneider, from Stanford University. Behavioral change will require a well-informed public.

We need to act fast, and apply lessons from missed opportunities to introduce other under-reported global environmental challenges on the list -- overfishing, clean drinking water, ocean pollution, feeding the planet. "The public can take the bad news," said Duke University scientist Thomas Crowley.

Most of the workshop participants had 10 to 30 years of experience as researchers or science reporters. As a beginning science writer, I look at a career 10 to 30 years ahead of me. Is my training in journalism school adequate preparation for the challenges of this kind of reporting? Would news organizations ever take on environmental issues as seriously as these scientists and journalists do? These questions ping-ponged through my head.

I write about science because I love to work on complex and demanding stories. But writing about climate change poses different challenges in many ways. "Climate is a messy science," said one participant in the discussion. "We need to humanize the issue."

Like climate change itself, the discussion of how to report it brought up emotions not especially easy to discuss. Our sensitivities were heightened because the topic directly relates to our own choices and individual behaviors.

I found inspiration knowing that scientists and reporters will have to address this as a team. We put greater expectations on each other individually, but we also need to work together to achieve common goals. New bonds of trust formed between the scientists and journalists over the days of the workshop.

For me, another insight emerged from the group. We all agreed that good old-fashioned storytelling, the stuff of great journalism, makes a difference. Simply reporting the facts doesn't change people. We all knew that good stories could be found in good, solid science. These exchanges prompted me to want to dig deeper for my stories, to be exacting, fair, and engaging.

"You need to balance the potential tragedy," said Chris Bowman, a veteran environmental reporter from the Sacramento Bee, "with the potential hope."