The Onion, CJR do climate change
The Columbia Journalism Review and The Onion have both turned their attention to climate change, running a couple of good stories about how the topic is covered.
First, the CJR looks at the rhetoric of the term ‘carbon footprint’ and wonders if we adopt new terms far more easily than adopting the substance or actions behind them. The second addresses the five failings of environmental journalism, which was checked with the Society for Environmental Journalists and picked up by the blogs, coming as a response to the Wired article that ran in June on revisiting our ‘preconceptions of green’.
But my favourite piece has been the new issue of The Onion: the ‘obligatory green issue’, a spot on spoof of the ‘greening’ craze, for generally one issue only, of UK and US magazines and newspapers. It’s well worth a look. My favourite headline?
“Temperature of Coffee set to rise nine degrees over 21st Century”
Resurgence of the ‘Consensus’
This morning the Guardian carries Bjorn Lomborg’s latest perspective on global warming, suggesting that both McCain and Obama are barking up the wrong tree in their support for a US cap-and-trade system to curb emissions.
I’m reading similar critiques of the cap-and-trade argument by leading economists/scientists in Ernest Zedillo’s book Global Warming. The main thrust of the counter-argument is that people such as Lomborg, to quote Freeman Dyson, writing in the NY Review of Books:
are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice.
This is Lomborg’s position, clearly communicated by this piece in today’s Guardian. Read on, Lomborg pulls the article round to promote / PR the Copenhagen Consensus, Lomborg’s organisation which, back on May 30th this year, released version 2 of the list of the world’s top problems/solutions, in a priority order, that it first released back in 2004. Then, mitigation against global warming came bottom of its list of 50 actions, ordered against cost/benefit economics — that is, mitigation was the least cost effective of all the ‘public goods’ that the world leaders could invest in.
And this time round?
Global warming mitigation again comes bottom. It is ‘competing’ in the minds of the ‘Consensus’ (which, as Real Climate pointed out back in 2006, is not really a consensus but a group of eight; compare to the IPCC scientist list of 2,000) with malnutrition, women’s rights, hunger and development.
Press coverage?
Back in 2004, the ‘Consensus’ gained huge press coverage. This time round the press have been understandably more cautious. 2004 was perhaps the emotional peak of the argument between ’sceptics’ and ‘believers’. The press were reporting both sides equally, providing what Boykoff and Boykoff called an ‘informational bias’ by putting side by side arguments from an overwhelming majority against a small group of contrarians. Before this morning, only The Times had covered the 2008 consensus in any depth. Other smaller magazines (the right-wing Reason) had some coverage, and other members of the Copenhagen Consensus organisation have been pushing the news through Project Syndicate.
Here’s a decent critique of the approach that Lomborg and his ‘Consensus’ have taken. Read more
Simon Hoggart’s ‘dogmatic and irrational’ mistake
Yesterday in the Guardian Simon Hoggart referred to the environmental movement as a ‘religion - dogmatic and irrational’ in a small aside about wind power as the last entry in his week’s sketch. The full quote:
We are to have across our still beautiful countryside thousands more ghastly, noisy, hideous wind turbines, which produce very little energy at enormous cost. Proof that the environmental movement has become a religion - dogmatic and irrational - in that it has now persuaded government that to save the environment, we must first destroy it. [my emphasis]
Not the kind of environmental journalism you expect from the Guardian, which has delivered a consistent and well-researched line of sober alarm on climate change. In contrast, Jeremy Leggett’s piece took apart the government’s ‘green revolution’ in a far more measured way. Wrapped up in the safety net of opinion with no need to check facts, Hoggart has got it all wrong. For example:
- which produce very little energy…
According to Research Energy Solutions and the British Wind Energy Association, “Modern wind turbines are operational for 70-85% of the time and over the course of the year they will generate, on average, up to 35% of the theoretical maximum output. The exact figure is dependent on the location, technology, size, turbine reliability and wind conditions. By comparison, the load factor of conventional power stations is on average 50%2. A typical modern 2.3MW wind turbine can produce enough power for over 1,000 homes - and that is taking into account the fact that the wind doesn’t blow all the time.”
- at enormous cost…
According to both the British Wind Energy Association and the US Electric Power Research institute, prices are competitive with both coal and nuclear. In the UK, “An average for a new onshore wind farm in a good location is 3-4 pence per unit, competitive with new coal (2.5-4.5p) and cheaper than new nuclear (4-7p).”
- still beautiful countryside…
Hoggart’s use of the ’still’ here is a linguistic rhetoric device to stir up emotive reactions, making the beautiful countyside live in the continuous present tense, and therefore providing the threat that this continuous present is under threat. And personally, I think wind farms are pretty stunning and beautiful themselves.
- the environmental movement is a religion - dogmatic and irrational…
Which is pretty ironic, really, as Hoggart’s piece has ‘proved’ (another rhetorical device) that his opining is, well, rather dogmatic (‘asserting opinions in a doctrinaire or arrogant manner; opinionated’) and irrational (‘not in accordance with reason’) . No, environmental action is not a religion. Unless, of course, religion is based on science. Or if religion is a focus on the present world, not a future transcendental. Or if religion is a way to justify the dismantling of the military-political complex, rather than a way to excuse its gross expansion. The modern environmental movement began with Rachel Carson’s highly scientific and focused study on pesticide use and its impact on the environment (Silent Spring). Driven by passion and justice, yes. A blind faith in a cognitive myth, no.
Such a shame that this old and buried meme is stil circulating.
Why local and digital is better for the environment
A group of bloggers have organised a Carnival of Journalism, each month addressing different key issues in the profession. This month it’s hosted by Andy Dickinson, who set the question: Is (digital) journalism better the more local it is and what does that do to growth?
I’m not one of the official cavorters, but it got me thinking anyway about local (digital) media and environmental journalism. For me, the crossover of local/digital journalism and environmental sustainability could be a fantastic growth opportunity for regional media, as well as local citizen journalism groups and networks, with the result being increased environmental awareness and activity. Read more
Twenty years on: covering climate change
I wonder what the long-term impact will be on my personality of writing about climate change.
I am writing a chapter for a book provisionally entitled ‘Media and Climate Change’, an academic text, and my focus is on the reporting of the policy texts: how the Kyoto Protocol, IPCC reports, UK Climate Bill, etc, have been received and dealt with in the press, and what impact this has had on effective action.
It can be upsetting and depressing work. It would be fair to say I’m struggling this week. One example why: read this intro to a news story I was anaylsing:
SCIENTISTS, politicians and journalists are part of a conspiracy to predict catastrophe through global warming, a Channel 4 programme suggested last night. The programme claimed that disparate groups were making this claim for their own reasons and presented data allegedly demolishing the greenhouse theory. Scientists from the Meteorological Office meet today to decide whether to complain to the Independent Broadcasting Authority.
Sounds familiar? The Great Global Warming Swindle from last year, right? No. This was The Greenhouse Conspiracy, broadcast by Channel 4, which I found while researching media coverage of the first IPCC report in 1990. Watch it on Youtube.
Upsetting and depressing. We’ve gone around in circles. And as an IPSOS-MORI report released this weekend and covered by Juliette Jowitt in the Observer, the public continue to be confused by the messages they receive through the media about the science.
How does this happen? This quote is from the report itself: Read more
Wordle images of today’s top stories
Wordle is a very cool tool. Put in any bunch of words and it creates a text cloud based on most commonly recurring words.
Here is today’s lead story (and all peripheral links and stories on the homepage) on DailyMail.co.uk:
And here’s for the lead story from Guardian.co.uk:
Lovely.
‘Churnalism’ strikes with earthquakes
News sites and the Associated Press in America are being criticized by a leading climate blog for failing to check the veracity of a report that was pushed in a press release last week, claiming that earthquakes are linked to global warming.
Did you miss it? This story was published on:
- Yahoo Biz
- Investigate Express.co.uk
- MSNBC
- Free Republic (grass roots conservatism)
- Ad Hoc News (says it all…)
Erm. That’s about it. Thanks to RyanM on the Climate Audit site, Sans Pretence, the comments on Pat Dollard, and Wesley Smith for picking up on the news items. As Wesley says, “Does anybody do any fact checking anymore? Or are the words “scientific study” on a press release all that it takes to make the news?” (filed under: Stupidity in Media). The story was picked up by a number of other climate and political blogs, many of which are providing normally excellent citizen journalism, and, as such, (e.g. Deprogram your mind) quickly removed.
So where’d they get the story? Read more
U.S.: Mixed messages = mixed-up audience
Some notes from the US. Lots of coverage on John McCain’s two faces today: 1) the climate change campaigner in his new 30-second TV ad ‘Global’, and 2) the five-gallon hat friend, talking to Big Oil in Texas about his plans to lift restrictions on drilling for oil and gas.
The ad goes out in New Hampshire and a number of other states. Not Texas. So, as Grist suggests, there are mixed messages. But actually, not quite. There are two clear, uncomplicated messages–they’re just targeted at two different audiences. (David Cameron is having a lot of success over here at the moment with the same tactic. During the Crewe & Nantwich byelection, no mentions of climate change. But “in a speech to environmentalists” (who esle?) Cameron promised he won’t drop green policies.)
Watch the ad here:
So what affect is this mixing up of messages having? Read more
Climate talks end without… any coverage
The UN Climate Talks which ran from 2-13 June in Bonn, Germany, to pave the way for a new agreement on how to tackle climate change, have ended with no national or regional UK press coverage.
The opening and close of the climate debate was covered by the wires (Reuters, AFP), by the Chinese news agency Xinhua, and by WWF the wildlife charity. Reuters reported from the middle of the debate on the “lack of leadership from Western countries” (surely a story worth reporting?), as did the WWF. In the UK, the talks were announced by just one newspaper. Fiona McCloud, writing in the Scotsman on June 1, opened her news piece (500 words, page 6) with:
CRUCIAL climate-change talks get underway today to discuss the next steps the international community needs to take to tackle global warming. Some 2,000 delegates from 162 countries and dozens of specialist agencies will gather… to get into the nuts and bolts of a new global-warming agreement meant to take effect after 2012.
Note that word: Crucial. Fiona got it right–what is decided in this conference and those to follow is one of the, if not the, most significant piece of lawmaking of our future societies. But as Reuters, AFP and Xinhua all reported, the outlook is not good: Read more
Networked journalism to cover climate change
How can citizen media help improve the mainstream and commercial coverage of climate change?
Through networked journalism: professional journalists and citizen journalists working together. How it could work for climate change was inspired by a case of good/bad reporting. RealClimate.org (good) picks up on a Wired article (bad) from last month, and takes apart the weak argument (”air conditioning is better than heating”) with some fairly straightforward science. What riles RealClimate most is that:
WIRED got the story egregiously wrong, and not just because they did the arithmetic wrong. In their rush to be cute, they didn’t even make a half-baked attempt to do the arithmetic.
Some comments pin down Wired for this and blame it on profiteering (”eyeballs for advertisers”). Both the comment and RealClimate’s commentary of a ‘rush to be cute’ are straying a bit far from a fair hearing on the matter, I’d say, because even Wired has to make money, and it generally does a good job of reporting across its tech homeland under the standard pressures that journalists face: file quickly, file accurately, move on.
What’s happening now?
But digital media is now providing unlimited freedom to respond to the media’s inaccuracies; we are no longer confined to a letters page or in the hope that a printed competitor will take up the matter. Of course, even the best journalists slip up, but there is now so much media surveillance that any errors or biases are very quickly spotted and addressed. This is one of the key benefits of networked journalism for those publications that are willing to work with sites and reporting such as RealClimate’s.
Networked journalism is coming through as a powerful idea for reshaping the newsroom and news practices. This is not the technical overview, but as a brief intro, it could work like this:
1. Journalists network with the best non-professional journalists (particularly experts) to gather more and better info
2. They publish. Praised when great, and take the stick when wrong
3. Incorporate, amend, improve (win awards)
4. Grow the network, refine, use RSS, Twitter, WIkis, and produce better journalism
The only option?
No, of course this is not the only option to think about. There are, including the idea of networked journalism as option A), four ways of improving climate change reporting:
a) develop the ’21st century newsroom’ according to Paul Bradshaw, and ‘network’ the journalist into the myriad digital opportunities for improved coverage
b) put less pressure to file on normal journalists
c) train every journalist and journalism student in science reporting
d) embed journalists with scientists at the UN, IPCC, Oxford and MIT, the Radley Centre…
I’m sure you can think of more. But sticking to these four, in reverse order:
d) is not going to happen. A bit of tongue in cheek on this one
c) is also not going to happen, and is less likely than d): see Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News, which blames ‘churnalism’, the rapid output of poorly researched articles, on economic pressures that even Wired journalists would be under, and not the journalists themselves. This is not going to change any time soon.
b) is a viable option. Science training as standard for every journalist (and student of journalism). Although highly improbable.
a) then is the most likely and most effective, that goes with the flow of developing media patterns, utilizing the changes in the way we now consume and produce (as prod-users) new media, and the speed at which journalists can find, connect with, talk to, work with, and source/quote from a range of experts who are already publishing on their story issue.
Think about the quality of the Wired story if they had connected with RealClimate BEFORE they published…
