KlimaatHelpdesk.org: Connecting citizens with climate questions to experts with answers&#160;
Authors: Reijnders Daan , van Sebille Erik , Bijl Peter ,   KlimaatHelpdesk Team
Published: March 2022

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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;When faced with a question, scientists and scholars are trained to&amp;#160;search&amp;#160;academic and informal&amp;#160;literature to find&amp;#160;the answer.&amp;#160;But where&amp;#160;can&amp;#160;the public&amp;#160;find reliable&amp;#160;answers to&amp;#160;questions about the climate crisis?&amp;#160;After all,&amp;#160;the climate crisis&amp;#160;is a topic about which our understanding&amp;#160;rapidly&amp;#160;evolves&amp;#160;across a wide array of disciplines.&amp;#160;The validity&amp;#160;and reliability&amp;#160;of&amp;#160;offered&amp;#160;information is difficult to&amp;#160;assess&amp;#160;for non-specialists, while scientific consensus is&amp;#160;sometimes deliberately undermined&amp;#160;in popular articles. Moreover,&amp;#160;civil&amp;#160;questions about&amp;#160;the&amp;#160;climate&amp;#160;crisis&amp;#160;can be very specific, pragmatic or locally applicable, so not all answers can be found on popular sources&amp;#160;that&amp;#160;commonly&amp;#160;provide only the theoretical principles or general background.&amp;#160;This raises the question how we can connect citizens with climate-related questions to understandable scientific expert&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;knowledge&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;KlimaatHelpdesk.org&amp;#160;is meant to become the go-to place in the Netherlands for&amp;#160;citizens&amp;#160;with climate-related questions. It is a unique,&amp;#160;independent,&amp;#160;and accessible c&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;ommunications&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;#160;platform that connects the&amp;#160;public&amp;#160;with scientists and experts, run by a volunteer group&amp;#160;of students and academics. People who ask&amp;#160;a&amp;#160;question on this platform will receive&amp;#160;a&amp;#160;peer-reviewed answer to their question from a network of affiliated scholars and experts. KlimaatHelpdesk&amp;#160;archives&amp;#160;the&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;question and&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;corresponding&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;answer&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;#160;on the website and thereby&amp;#160;provides an&amp;#160;expanding,&amp;#160;easily accessible source of reliable and evidence-based information. Since the official launch in November 2020, more than&amp;#160;250&amp;#160;enthusiastic experts&amp;#160;have&amp;#160;answered and/or reviewed&amp;#160;over&amp;#160;130&amp;#160;questions&amp;#160;in a variety of disciplines:&amp;#160;from&amp;#160;meteorology, oceanography and biology to psychology,&amp;#160;law,&amp;#160;and philosophy.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;KlimaatHelpdesk&amp;#160;also serves as&amp;#160;a platform for students and young academics to get involved in science outreach and public engagement, and for scientists to explain their&amp;#160;research&amp;#160;to a targeted audience.&amp;#160;While&amp;#160;KlimaatHelpdesk&amp;#160;is further&amp;#160;expanding its&amp;#160;reach in&amp;#160;the Netherlands,&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;we also work to make&amp;#160;the&amp;#160;platform portable to other&amp;#160;countries and disciplines. We are&amp;#160;eager and&amp;#160;ready to share our gained experience&amp;#160;with the wider&amp;#160;Science Communication, Engagement &amp; Outreach&amp;#160;community.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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