Dr. Pereira,
I am in complete agreement with what you have written and if there is anything I can do to help let me know. If you would like to read my first essay (the introduction is on the MAHB forum page) let me know: lhatlett@gmail.com 

As you might guess Tony, I and my closestr colleagues tend to agree with you — but when a statment is put together, you can never get exactly what you want.  The MAHB is simply lending its web site to what we consider a pretty good statement — it was requested by governor Brown and he (and President Xi to whom he gave it in Chinese) are pushing it hard.  It’s also been given to Kerry and likely will get to Obama.  Maybe if it gets enough endorsements the topics can become more common in public discourse, and views like yours can be expressed more readily.  By the way, I was involved in the UCS statement and the very similar one (same time ~19930 from 58 Academies of Science.  They were greetied by the same media silence the new statement has recieved. So I urge you and your friends to endorse and persuade everyone you can to do the same.  Don’t  let the perfect drive out the good (or whatever that old bromide is!  and fight on!  Best, Paul

Media thrives on conflict and won’t usually touch a story that doesn’t involve a dispute betwene one party and another.  Conflict is the source of drama of course and our media is filled to overflowing the stories about the “good guys” versus “the bad guys,” whether they be cops and robbers, sheriff’s and cattle rustlers or main street versus wall street or polluters versus regulators.
Squeazing stories that deal with warnings such as those contained in the MAHB concensus statement into that paradigm is difficult to do and hence the media doesn’t even make the attempt.  The conflict is too subtle and nuanced.
If we wish to garner media attention we have to formulate our message in a form that can be perceived as a conflict, which I dare say is an artful task.  Yet I think it;s one that’s do-able, without being shrill or overly accusatory toward particular individuals or entities.
I’d agreee that some effort would have to be devoted to creating an approach and a form through which the mesage could be conveyed in this manner.  I’m sure a few experienced and competent journalists could contribute to this.  The art is in writing the press release.
On another note, we should be pleased to learn that a new set of science standards for K-12 have been released by Achieve, an educational nonprofit, which could transform American science education — assuming politicians can keep their distance.
The “Next Generation Science Standards” took two years to create, and are the result of a drafting committee of 41 members — including Nobel Prize laureates, National Research Council members, science education researchers and standards and policy experts. The voluntary plan (which does not carry the force of law and is not yet endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education) included input from 26 states, with 21 states saying they’d seriously consider adopting the standards. However, the final product includes information on global climate change and a preference for evolution over creationism — two of several concepts that could lead some Red States to reject the standards on political grounds.
To learn more, Google “New Science Standards in K-12 education.”
But this does represent a hopful turn.