A "teachable moment" for science communication: Mayor Bloomberg shows how it's done

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be — given the devastation it is wreaking — should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Reported in latest dotearth post on the foreseeably polarizing "Sandy-causation-teaching-moment" meme.

That said, I do wish Bloomberg would stop trying to make people drink small sodas & breast feed their infants!

BTW, by calling Bloomberg's statement a "teachable moment" for science communication, I recognize that I risk insulting the many  many many people who have been urging that Sandy be seized as a "teachable moment" for those communicating climate science to the public. The problem with this phrase is that that it conveys a certain attitude; it comes off sounding as if one views those who need to be "taught" something as dimwitted school children. I'd recommend a different "strategy" -- like, say, treating (even truly regarding) the people to whom one is purporting to communicate science as thinking citizens who are entitled to get information in a form and under conditions that enable them to use their reason.

I promise not to use this obnoxious idiom anymore if you do. Deal?