When it comes to climate change, journalists are notorious for getting even the simplest of facts wrong. Take, for example, an article from March 2007, by Julie Wheldon, which proclaims “Greenhouse Effect is a Myth, Say Scientists” in the headline. Yet, the body of the article does not argue that there is no greenhouse effect. In fact, no scientist would argue that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist. Without it, life as we know it would not exist.

So why does the media get it wrong? Well, there are a few reasons, put forth by different researchers. Here, I summarize the four main concepts from three articles: Wilson, “Communicating Climate Change Through the Media”; Boykoff & Boykoff, “Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press”; and Antilla, “Climate of Scepticism: US Newspaper Coverage of the Science of Climate Change” to explain what goes on behind the headlines.

1. Misinterpreting Studies

Journalists, generally, do not have science degrees. However, when it’s a journalist’s job to translate findings from scientific articles into reasonably understandable and easy-to-read newspaper articles or TV news stories, this becomes quite the challenge.

The first problem is that the journalists themselves might not understand the complex concepts. The second problem is that they might try to simplify the concepts for others. When both problems occur, a factually incorrect story results, like Julie Wheldon’s.

2. Creating a Story

Journalists require news stories that fit the time (TV, radio), space (newspapers, magazines, blogs) and budget constraints. In TV, visuals are also crucial. However, scientific studies and theories are often too time-consuming, expensive, or risk seeming dull on TV without visuals. Thus, climate change coverage often falls by the wayside.

Reporters often try to make climate change relevant by relating it to local weather stories. From a journalist’s point of view, this provides a unique, local twist to the ongoing story of climate change. Otherwise, from a newsroom perspective, global warming provides very little potential for an article. Not surprisingly, however, its extremely hard to prove whether one particular storm or flood could be caused by global warming.

3. Drawing an Audience

Whereas scientists’ studies are full of careful phrasing, such as “possibly” and “could”, it is the job of journalists to grab people’s attention through bold headlines, and eye-catching statements. That’s how a scientist’s declaration that “climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds” (said by Philip Stott and cited by Julie Wheldon’s article) may turn into “Greenhouse Effect is a Myth, Say Scientists” in the headline to catch readers’ attention.

Journalists also have a tendency to create drama by framing climate change in duelling-scientist model. Articles pit scientist against scientist, while ignoring the larger picture and issues.

4. Balance as Bias

No scientists deny that climate change in happening. While this may sound like a bold statement, it’s actually not. The earth’s temperature is rising—no one doubts this. The debate occurs around the details of it, and what the future will be like.

In the field of contemporary journalism, however, objectivity is valued. Thus, reporters will often go out of their way to find an opposing view, to appear balanced. These opposing views are extreme and falsified (like denying the greenhouse effect). The experts cited by journalists often have little relation to the fields of climate science. Paul Reiter, cited by Wheldon, is not a climate science expert, but a malaria researcher. He is quoted as saying “I am not a climatologist, nor an expert on sea level or polar ice. But I do know from talking to many scientists in many disciplines that this consensus is a mirage.” (http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.php3?id=210).    

Highlighting incorrect science just for the sake of having two views can create a bias of its own, when it appears that there is a legitimate debate. This is the phenomenon that the term “balance as bias” describes. 

5. Corporate Ties

Returning to Wheldon’s article, many of  these “experts” she cites are not only unqualified in climatology (like the malaria researcher), but they have ties with the fossil fuel industry and big business.

Ian Clark, for example, is a member of the right wing think-tank organization “The Fraser Institute”. The Fraser institute is infamous for hiring scientists to deny global warming, and is funded by ExxonMobil. Two other organization Clark is involved in (“Competitive Enterprise Institute” and “Heartland Institute”) are also funded by ExxonMobil.

Paul Reiter, again, writes for “Tech Central Station”, a publication that is also funded by ExxonMobil. Two other organizations Reiter is involved with (“Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy” and “International Policy Network”) are —you guessed it—funded by ExxonMobil.

Clearly, these climate change deniers, cited by the media, are swimming in fossil fuel money. It’s easy to find out which denies are connected to the industry. Greenpeace has developed a wonderful tool that traces Exxon Mobil money to publications, politicians, organizations and scientists: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets

In theory, the scientists are doing their job, and the journalists are doing theirs. It’s no one’s fault that scientists use careful phrasing, while reports need to create eye-catching headlines. The problem occurs when the two disciplines become tangled together, like they do in the case of climate change.

Wilson’s article documents a study of the public’s climate change knowledge, and the results were disappointing. Many people confused the terms “climate change” and “greenhouse effect” for the same thing. They are not synonymous terms. People also believed that global warming was strongly debated among scientists. Interestingly, the people who scored the lowest are those who reported TV as their main news source.

So, why it matter if the media gets it wrong? Journalism (newspapers, magazines, TV news, etc) is the prime medium through which the public learns about climate change. Unless a person is already somehow educated about the topic, it’s unlikely that they would start reading (or have access to) peer-reviewed scientific journals. Therefore, if the media gets it wrong, chances are, the public will too. And this is a major problem.

Photo credit: azrainman

When discussing climate change, the old saying needs to be amended to “What do you want first, the somewhat good news, or the astoundingly awful bad news?”

The bad news is piling up fast:

* The ice sheets in the Artic, Antarctic and Greenland are melting twice as fast as earlier projections from just a year or two ago, which will lead to the sea level rising about a foot every 20 or 25 years – meaning a 3-foot rise by the end of the century, enough to wipe out some island nations, flood much of Bangladesh and other low-lying coastal countries, threaten many coastal cities around the world, and increase erosion on coasts.

* Glaciers are melting faster as well – meaning that before the end of this century, glaciers in the Himalayas may disappear, and these glaciers provide water for over a billion people, an environmental, agricultural and human catastrophe. This extra melting will first cause more floods in India and China, and then cause extreme water stress for humans and for agriculture.

* Previous estimates of the massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane locked up in the permafrost were too small, increasing the likelihood of an unstoppable tipping point if too much of the permafrost melts and releases these greenhouse gases, potentially overwhelming any human efforts to slow and control carbon emissions.

* While it is not possible to link any one weather event to global warming, extreme weather events are increasing in intensity and frequency, such as the droughts in Australia and the U.S. Southeast and Southwest which heavily impact on agricultural production of essential foodstuffs like wheat.

* Scientific projections are now that even with all the planned emission cuts, the world’s average temperature will rise 6 degrees by the end of the century, with disastrous consequences for extreme weather events, droughts, disruption of agriculture, species extinction, water stress, population dislocation, spread of tropical diseases, ocean acidification, and many other aspects of life. This will be the hottest world in the last 11,000 years or more, the entire period of human agricultural development.

Are you scared now? There is some good news:

* The Waxman/Markey energy bill has passed the House of Representatives and has some serious support in the Senate (the companion Senate bill was introduced on Sept. 29, sponsored by John Kerry and Barbara Boxer), though whether or not this can overcome the fierce lobbying by energy companies, right-wing climate change deniers, and coal-producing states is still to be determined, in part by our activism.

* In a cloud/silver lining way, the global economic crisis has resulted in a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions over the last year, with decreases in travel and shipping, and the shelving or delay of some proposed coal-fired plants.

* China has made significant strides in increasing its energy efficiency, and it projects a four-fold increase in energy efficiency in the coming decades, which means its economy can still continue to expand, lifting millions out of poverty, without increasing the threats to the atmosphere. China is also making other important strides in improving its environmental efforts, though it still opposes mandatory caps on the emissions of developing countries.

* Diplomatic efforts and meetings to prepare for the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference are intensifying, and include important proposals such as the U.S. proposal to cut energy subsidies; a fund to compensate countries such as Brazil and Indonesia for ending or at least slowing rampant deforestation; and various proposals to share technology and costs for the poorest countries, which have contributed least to the problem yet face the earliest and sharpest impacts of climate change, and to mitigate and adapt to rising sea levels and set limits on carbon emissions.

* The production of alternative energy is increasing; the efficiency of alternative energy processes is increasing – making them more economically competitive with fossil fuels; subsidies for alternative energy are increasing – such as $60 billion in the U.S. stimulus package; and alternative energy sector jobs are increasing.

* Economic projections of the costs of carbon emissions caps and other environmental measures have decreased, making these efforts more economically and politically feasible.

There is much public posturing leading up to the Copenhagen conference, which has the goal of negotiating the international treaty that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

Passage of a climate change bill by the full Congress and completion of a treaty in Copenhagen complete with mandatory emission reductions for at least all the industrially developed countries are the minimum steps needed, before the bad news gets much worse.

Author: Marc Brodine, People’s World