Media oversimplification of climate change frustrates scientific community… and me
“There is no newspaper or TV [network] that has the actual job or goal of enlightening the population about how the earth system works. They have the goal of making money as the bottom line and selling their newspapers. So expecting journalists to do this job for us when they are being paid to earn money for a newspaper isn’t correct, it isn’t going to happen,” –Katherine Richardson, professor of marine science, University of Copenhagen (from ABS-CBN News)
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
The oversimplification of environmental issues like climate change and global warming is routinely practiced by the media and by politicians. This is a typical symptom of contemporary, ultra-mediated life in countries around the world – thanks in no small part to satellite television and the Internet. Independent journalism is increasingly tabloid in style and based more and more on advertising and sales, the use of slogans, glitz and shock tactics. This is sometimes referred to the “dumbing down” of journalism. In other words, instead of delivering the news and informing the public, the media is all too often about spoon feeding the masses an entertaining and titillating product. Turn on any major American television news channel or program and it’s obvious. Forget nuance, balance and accuracy, we want tasty morsels of controversy! And that’s the real news stories. Don’t even get me started on things like the BBC News covering American Idol.
At the same time politics increasingly resembles advertising. It’s become more about PR than policy. Like when President Obama killed that fly. Suddenly he’s either a killer or he’s just keepin’ it real. You could almost hear the gears in the PR machine grind. And in an era when politics and media are dominated by style, slogans and symbolism, it is only natural that a major issue like the environment will suffer a similar fate. Of course, this is not always a bad thing. Let’s face it: the Earth needs a good bit of PR now more than ever. It is convenient and hopefully effective to think in terms of being ‘Green’ and trying to have a small ‘carbon footprint.’ It’s catchy. It’s got ‘zazz!’
But the danger comes when things get so packaged and simplified and sloganized that they become inaccurate and open to criticism not just from the scientific community, but from evil polluters, with their vast reserves of cash and bottomless pits where their consciences should be. Their own patsy scientists will tear our simplifications apart and use them against us. Suddenly we’re the dumb ones, the masses being lied to and fooled by our opportunistic governments and their puppets in the media. We know that global warming could cause an ice age. We’ve seen The Day After Tomorrow. We know that ‘carbon’ is short for carbon dioxide and CO2 is just a convenient way to collectively refer to all greenhouse gasses like methane and water vapor, nitrous oxide and sulphur hexafluoride. We all know that stuff, right?
All right, I don’t know the names of all the greenhouse gasses either. I’m still coming to terms with how my mom’s hairspray made a hole in the ozone layer. And apparently that was global cooling, not global warming. Oh screw it; just say carbon!
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
Yet, it still gets on my nerves, especially when I have to listen to or read uninformed debate about scientific phenomena that neither side seems to have a grasp of. Those poor mad scientists, slaving away in their laboratories with the burden of the future of our planet on their shoulders, emerging into the light with frightening information about climate change… and what do they get in response? ‘Global warming needs more study’. Or more recently, the President of the Czech Republic’s claims that the governments of Europe – backed by the scientific community, mind you – ‘probably do not want to reveal their true plans and ambitions to stop economic development and return mankind several centuries back.’
Admittedly, no stuffy science nerd could have come up with a zinger like that. And that’s part of the problem: scientists do not always make great communicators. But journalists and politicians do not make good scientists either. It seems that the scientists need to get into the PR business and mediate with the media and the politicians. Read what scientists at last March’s International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen had to say about it here.
In closing, here is a video and transcript of what I feel is a bad example of interaction between journalists, politicians and scientists discussing climate change. It’s from a segment called ‘Crunch Time’ on the investigative journalism program 60 Minutes on Australia’s Channel 9. No debate between experts, or source criticism, just arguments and dismissals, which could leave many viewers more than a little confused as to whether climate change is even real. And it’s a bit late for that now, don’t you think?
By Graham Land
Additional resources:
BBC – Climate skepticism: the top 10
Popularity: -0% [?]
Tags: climate change, global warming, media, politicians, scientists
Leave a Reply