Deborah Byrd on EarthSky's vision
Deborah Byrd said EarthSky's community cares about a thoughtful future. (Image: Joshua Davis)
You’ve heard the familiar voice of Deborah Byrd on the radio for more than 30 years. Here, the Earth & Sky founder and veteran science communicator talks about EarthSky’s vision.
“We’re focused on science,” said Byrd, “and we’re focused on the thoughtful future that science can help usher in for the 21st century.”
EarthSky Communications, Inc., a new media company reaching millions worldwide every day, is a community of scientists, sponsors, and staff working together to bring the voice of science to a large audience.
EarthSky is a leader in letting scientists speak directly to the public. Everything EarthSky produces, Byrd said, is based on interviews with scientists.
“We keep it all on a level that people can feel connected to,” said Byrd. “Because if the person listening feels connected to that scientist who is speaking, we’ve built a bridge between that scientist and that person. And that’s a great honor. It’s the work we try to do.”
Hear more from Deborah Byrd on the EarthSky community in this Clear Voices for Science podcast.
Subscribe to this and other free science podcasts from EarthSky, a clear voice for science.
Deborah,
…And what an excellent job I might add! I’ve posted comments to several blogs and podcasts at EarthSky (E&S) and have had many of my questions responded to and answered. It doesn’t get any more connected than that!
Equally important in E&S’s venue is the avenue they create for many scientists who have little opportunity to present their thoughts and vision much beyond their industry journals. Nobody reads them but other scientists. So E&S offers not only the latest in science for the listeners but an opportunity for the scientists to be connected to a very much interested public – the real benefactors of their work.
I am a research scientist myself but there are so many branches of science that fall outside of my experience. So, I come to this site with the same curiosity and questions as any other visitor. I can tell you that E&S presents their media content with the highest scientific integrity, journalistic quality, and value to the visitor. E&S has become my first daily read to keep up on the latest in the world of science. E&S gets two thumbs up from this avid visitor.
Dear Deborah,
Your perspective is vital. If it pleases you, perhaps you and others would comment on something that has been on my mind.
Thanks are due you and many in the Earth & Sky community for faithfully distinguishing scientific facts from the specious ideological factoids which are foisted upon all of us by a noticeably small group of shrill vendors of the spread of uncertainty, half-truths, disinformation, manufactured controversy and confusion generally.
Please know that the science so many of you report appears to be clear, coherent and reality-oriented. Thanks to everyone of you who have maintained your fidelity to science and eschewed ideological bias in its many artful presentations.
Much of the world as we know it could be irretrievably lost or irreversibly damaged by what my not-so-great generation of elders is self-righteously counseling and selfishly doing in our time.
The human community appears to be on track to receive its first trillionaire before long and, yes, a tiny minority of the projected and fully anticipated 9+ billion people on the planet by 2050 will be wealthier, much wealthier than any individual is today.
Yesterday’s millionaires have been replaced by today’s billionaires in Fortune Magazine and today’s billonaires will likely be supplanted by tomorrow’s trillionaires, I suppose.
According to many too many of our leaders, there is no end to the globalization of economic activity, to increase in the per capita consumption of Earth’s resources, or to the number of people who can live well in our planetary home. These leaders remain hysterically blind, willfully deaf and electively mute when presented with virtual mountains of scientific evidence that indicate that Earth is a planet of relatively small size, frangible ecosystem services and finite resources.
Daunting global challenges could soon be posed to our children by the unregulated consumption, production and propagation activities of my rapacious, not-so-great generation of elders.
Although a difficult one, perhaps the time is right to speak truth to power by effectively delivering a message to the human community’s richest, most powerful and famous leaders — particularly the ones directing the talking heads in the mass media, organizing public opinion, formulating government policy and implementing action plans — so the word goes out and is widely shared that the time for ubiquitous, self-limiting behavior change is at hand. Consider that now is the time for human beings to acknowledge human limits and accept Earth’s limitations, and to act accordingly.
Unrestricted consumption, unbridled production and unrestrained propagation activities of the human species, now occurring on a gigantic, soon-to-become patently unsustainable scale worldwide can be reasonably and sensibly managed, modified or otherwise changed, as necessary, and in ways which are consonant with universally shared values.
Sincerely,
Steve
Hello, Hank. You completely ‘get’ out website and podcasts. It’s so gratifying to us. Thank you!
Hi, Steve. I agree with much of what you say. If EarthSky is – as you put it – reality-oriented, it’s only because the scientists with whom we work are that way. EarthSky is working to be a vehicle for scientists to share their insights.
Best to you both!
Deborah