Global warming a tough issue for the media

Submitted by Martin on Fri, 12/15/2006 - 05:58

I've only recently come across interview with New York Times reporter Brooke Gladstone about the media and global warming.
Interesting reading - includes fact that it's a big issue, with long time scale, barely suited to frontpage headlines: can get frontpage news, but may be wrong if saying Hurricane Katrina, say, is definite result of warming.
Also, get tendency for media to aim for "balance" - showing there's debate, when really, the scientific consensus is that global warming is very real. (Occurs to me that it's a bit like debating the pros and cons of bestiality or something; just because a few people may be in favour doesn't mean there's a real debate about morals of it.)
Quotes from Gladstone include:

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when you look at the near term, there's been a lot of melting, a lot of strange things going on with the sea ice that they can't ascribe this particular year to our influence on the climate system. They know it's contributing to change but there's enough variability in the Arctic that you can't make a slam dunk case. So that's a nightmare for the media. You know, my editors -- the one thing that makes them glaze over immediately is the word "incremental". That's like, at The Times, and I'm sure any other newsroom, that's a death sentence for a story. And global warming is kind of like the Social Security and national debt of the environment. It's there, we all recognize it's some kind of big bad thing, but it's always kind of a "someday, somewhere story."

Dangerous Extremes

Post edited by: Martin, at: 2006/12/14 14:42

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Comments

Are words worthless in climate fight asks NY Times writer

Submitted by Martin on Fri, 12/07/2007 - 08:11.

New York Times environment reporter Andrew Revkin has blog post asking if words can lead to action needed to combat climate change
Cites email from Tom Lowe, a research associate at the Center for Risk and Community Safety in Melbourne, Australia, inc:

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In the absence of physical evidence that something bad is going to happen, people tend to ‘wait and see.’
...
A common reaction to this stand-off is for risk communicators to shout louder, to try and shake some sense into people. This is what I see happening with the climate change message. The public are on the receiving end of an increasingly distraught alarm call. The methods used to grab attention are so striking that people are reaching a state of denial.

also says:
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Another troublesome trait is the tendency to normalize a bad situation.

Various responses; I posted:

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Words are vital in the climate fight.

Vital partly to counter righties such as Inhofe, and their obfuscation. I today had short email correspondence w someone who wrote to me that he wasn’t sure carbon is leading to warming - figures it could be sun cycle. This, I reckon, stems from info from sceptics brigade, but not scientists.

I shall ever remember someone (editor at major magazine - which can help shape opinion, but has even run piece saying why warming will be good for us [!]) telling me, “I don’t believe in global warming; I’m a conservative.” [or something much like this]
To me, mind boggling.

Yet such views important, and - frustrating though it is given the science - it’s crucial to keep on with counter arguments.

Images important too, of course: a starving, skeletal polar bear on small ice floe among saddest I’ve yet seen.
Yet must also show that warming is not just out there, someplace - which has been big factor in US I think. It’s where you are; it’s effects are gonna get larger, and will be everywhere; no one will be unaffected.

“gonna” I’ve written here; not a normal word for me, a Brit.
But words for the fight must be chosen, used with care, strategically. Here, I’m writing for blog in US - albeit highly erudite readership/contributors, some of whom may never say “gonna”.

We need words to take this complex issue, and show key points. Greg Craven, in How It All Ends, has made a big contribution here - gone viral.
Otherwise, can be well meaning, but too dull; and maybe lapse into jargon (AGW, ghg … - tho yes, this blog is for those who know).

Indeed need this major issue to get coverage it deserves.

Reading comments here, also need to cover as a global issue; here, I’m seeing US-centric views.

As for me, I’ve blog/forum re warming (climate change, climate collapse…); ideas for documentary or two on the issue - we can all do what we can to get those words out.

Creeping climatic catastrophe yet media reporting lame

Submitted by Martin on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 12:54.

From the Guardian:

Quote:
"The flooding in Africa just now is the worst anyone can remember," Sir John [Holmes, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs] said, expressing frustration at how little media attention in the west was being devoted to what he terms creeping climatic catastrophe.

Climate change disaster is upon us, warns UN

National Geographic cites Ballocks in badly balanced piece

Submitted by Martin on Tue, 09/25/2007 - 10:46.

After seeing news item on National Geographic, sent this to them; maybe self-explanatory:

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In article re climate change inaction and costs, I believe you have tumbled into the trap re journalism supposedly requiring balance.

In quoting Timothy Ball, did you check re him and NSRC:
See DeSmogBlog profile of Ball, say:
http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1272
What kind of "expert" has published only 4 papers that can be found; and no original research in last 11 years, even though prolific in producing "popular" articles, and is in groups that reveal to disclose funding and/or have strong ties to oil industry monies?

Maybe in news, can also have "balanced" items re evolution, plate tectonics.
Except with these, far less of import is at stake.

And as for journalism, "balance" - of rather bogus nature - does not always happen. Do we get balance re, say paedophilia [where I believe are a very few arguing it's ok]?
The Nat Geo news item is at:
Global Warming Inaction More Costly Than Solutions?

US media muted and poor on science re global warming

Submitted by Martin on Thu, 08/02/2007 - 12:05.

Seems the US media - rather like dear old George "Warmer" Bush - is having a tough time getting to grips with global warming, and the magnitude and immediacy of the issue.

Media analysis by Fairness and aAccuracy in Reporting includes:

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The first IPCC report, issued on February 2, focused on the now-overwhelming evidence that the dramatic rise in global temperatures over the last century (about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit total), and especially the last decade, is due to human emissions of greenhouse gases. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded the IPCC, noting that 11 of the 12 warmest years on record have occurred since 1995, while the polar ice caps are melting and sea levels rising at increasing rates. The panel concluded that there is greater than 95 percent certainty that human activity is to blame.

The next day (2/3/07), alarmed headlines greeted newspaper readers: "Official: Global Warming Is All Our Fault." "World's Scientists Convinced That Humans Cause Global Warming." "Worse Than We Thought: Report Warns of 4 C Rise by 2100: Floods and Food and Water Shortages Likely."

None of those, though, were seen by readers of U.S. newspapers--they appeared in, respectively, Britain's Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and Guardian. The same day's U.S. headlines were mostly far more demure: "U.N. Study Spurs Call to Fight Warming" (Boston Globe); "From Global Warming Report, U.S. Feels Heat" (Chicago Tribune). The New York Times titled its front-page story "Science Panel Calls Global Warm-ing 'Unequivocal'"--ducking the more significant finding that not only is climate change underway, but that human-created greenhouse gases are the culprit.
Doubt Global Warming? Read Different News

Major U.S. Papers Less Likely Than International Counterparts To Confront Threat - short intro, then includes the analysis.

Re:Global warming a tough issue for the media

Submitted by Martin on Sat, 02/24/2007 - 23:39.

Thoughtful commentary on this issue from Dick Meyer of CBSNews.com, includes:

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So what is it that makes some human brains dismiss or ignore global warming and others, far fewer, feel worried, threatened and called to action? Answering this question properly is probably far more important to future behavior and policy than endless arguments about how hot it will be in Cincinnati in 2077.

Charles Darwin explains a lot of this. Global warming simply does not present the kinds of stimuli that the human nervous system evolved to respond to in order to survive threats from bears, lightning, rolling boulders and mean cavemen.

Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist who wrote "Stumbling on Happiness," summed up evolutionary psychology's perspective by noting how global warming lacked four traits "the human brain evolved to respond to."
Global Warming: It's All In Your Head
It's Not A Question Of Facts, But Perceptions, Says CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer

- recalls, to me, the reported behaviour of frogs w hot water: toss them into hot water, they jump out; heat it gradually, they stay till boil to death.