Hockey Stick: the first climate change metaphor
In his Public Understanding of Science 2000 article ‘Knowledge, Ignorance and Popular Culture’, University of Toronto Professor Sheldon Ungar suggests the reason that public understanding and concern could coalesce around the ozone hole, where it has failed to do so for climate change, was in part due to two things: first, that the ozone hole argument found bridging metaphors from popular culture that were easily understood; and second, it engendered a ‘hot crisis’.
As Ungar suggests, these bridging metaphors for the ozone hole were simple and powerful:
The signal advantage of the ozone hole is that is can be encapsulated in a simple and widely familiar “penetration” metaphor. Stated succinctly, the hole leads to increased bombardment of the earth by lethal rays. The idea of rays penetrating a damaged ’shield’ meshes nicely with abiding and resonant cultural motifs, including Hollywood ‘affinities’, ranging from the Starship Enterprise to Star Wars.
Importantly, as Ungar notes, these metaphors are ‘pre-scientific’. That is, they’re kept simple, before they get into the scientific detail of the ways in which ‘ozone eater’ chemicals destroy the earth’s atmospheric protection.
In fact, these metaphors were so powerful, that both Ungar (2000) and Hargreaves, Lewis and Speers (2003) found that many people simply considered climate change to be a sub-set problem of/caused by the ozone hole problem. In a saturated media, people hold onto the main themes and frameworks of science stories, and not much more, with which to take educated guesses at what’s going on in the world (Hargreaves et al, 2003). Read more
Climate change: how to balance freedoms
Thanks for all the comments so far. The post in reply, and new comments have moved on to the new post, over here.
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Earlier this week, one of the key sceptical blogs, Jennifer Marohasy, re-listed a collection of quotes to do with scepticism, denial and free expression. There are pegs on which denial–denial, and not scepticism–finds itself hooked. For example, picking up on inaccuracies in the politicized science. Interestingly, Mahorasy’s list came on the same day as a leaked email from the US Environmental Protection Agency, which has ’silenced its employees on climate change’. What’s going on in relation to climate change and freedom of expression, particularly online? Read more
More on ads: the Exxon ‘flip-flop’
I’m writing this blog as it’s announced that Exxon’s damages for the Valdez oil spill, in 1989, have finally been agreed. Nineteen years after. The oil company are also infamous for allegedly providing US$23m to undermine the science of climate change, and offering scientists and economists $10,000 each to undermine the findings of the latest IPCC report. Now Exxon have just released these ‘game-changing’ climate ads across Europe. A flip-flop, or just good old greenwash?
Mitchell Anderson over at DeSmogBlog has already provided a great summary of Exxon’s activities, so I won’t repeat it here. It’s important and fair to note that this is not the only perspective on the issue. Some bloggers are picking up on the story/allegation that the scientific community are cashing in on global warming, and that finance is the biggest draw for shouting loudest on climate change as a threat. I totally disagree with that, but it’s out there. (Oh, and here’s the link to how much they’re paying for the Exxon Valdez spill).
So from me, rather, a few comments on the discourse of these adverts from Exxon, ad by ad (click on the ad for larger versions): 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
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…
Credit crunch hits coverage of climate change
Headline coverage of climate change in the UK national press has dropped by over 40% since May 2007.
In May 2007, 103 headline stories in the top 20 UK newspapers carried either ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ or ‘Kyoto Protocol’ in the title. In May 2008, that figure had dropped to 59.
One month’s statistics could be a blip, of course, so I took a look at the whole of 2008 so far, in comparison with 2007. These are the results, first January-May 2007:
And then January - May 2008:
You can see that for these five months, the best month in 2008 (March, with 79) doesn’t even come close to the worst month in 2007 (May, with 103). While the Guardian has maintained a trend of near every day reporting, other titles have reduced their coverage. Of course quantity is not the same as quality, responsible or positive coverage. I’ll get to this in my later posts this week (tomorrow on The Sun; and you’ll be surprised about how much and how positive…). But in numbers, coverage is falling. And the trend is generally downwards.
So what’s happening? Read more
