CU scientist says journalists doing better job covering climate change

By Wendy Worrall Redal

In the Spring 2006 issue of SEJournal, published by the Society of Environmental Journalists, Paul Thacker interviews New York Times climate reporter Andrew Revkin to find out how he thinks the media has covered climate change and what advice for future stories he has to offer. In a similar vein, CEJ News/Views posed those questions to University of Colorado climate scientist Jim White. Here's our story:

One of the great credos of journalism is to seek balance in a story, to cover "both sides." But reporters' dogged tendency to do so on the issue of a human role in global warming has had a detrimental impact on the public's understanding of the subject, say many scientists who criticize media coverage of climate change.

They claim that in this case, giving equal weight to the opposition – the few remaining skeptics with questionable credibility – skews the accuracy of the story by ignoring the broad scientific consensus around a human link.

Fortunately, however, news coverage is improving, said Jim White, a geologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies the role of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, and the causes of abrupt climate change. His research has taken him on many trips to Antarctica and Greenland where he collects ice cores that show climate evolution over time. By melting the samples, scientists are able to analyze the atmospheric gas composition that can cause climate to shift.

CU Professor Jim White in his Boulder office (Photo/ Wendy Worrall Redal)

White, who directed CU's Environmental Studies Program until 2005, regards the role of journalism as crucial in helping to foster effective national policy about climate change. He has been actively involved on the CU campus in furthering dialogue between scientists and journalists aimed at creating better public understanding of the issue.

In just the last year White said he has noticed a significant shift in media coverage of the subject.

"The reporting is better because I don't see the 'other side' anymore."

Making an analogy with another topic once vehemently contested in the media, White said, "We've reached the 'cigarettes cause cancer' point; we don't call the tobacco companies for quotes anymore."

White also identified a second major shift that is getting media attention.

"There have been real cracks in the walls of the climate naysaying community" as skeptics are being converted by mounting evidence in the past five years, White said. Trying to further a defense against global warming is becoming an increasingly lonely mission, and journalists are recognizing that.

"As a scientist, it's laughable," said White. "How can you defend against reality?"

One reality that has captured journalists' attention is sea-level rise. White said he has seen a notable increase in coverage of the subject in the past six months, especially with regard to Antarctica's melting ice sheets.

"It's finally one of those things the press is covering and people are beginning to recognize it's a big problem."

The last time the Earth was as warm as predictions indicate it will be 50 years from now was 140,000 years ago, said White. At that time, the sea level was three meters higher than it is now, putting Baton Rouge on the coast and making Orlando a port city.

White also said Hurricane Katrina has been a major influence on the press's new focus. While it's impossible to say conclusively that global warming is to blame for Katrina's strength, White said, the storm was nonetheless a huge catalyst for a growing press interest in warming and rising seas and their effects.

"I've come to appreciate the power of these seminal events," White said. "These are galvanizing events that focus people's attention on the problems."

He also recognizes that the public is better able to grasp something concrete than the uncertainty inherent in the science around climate change. Especially with regard to predicting what may lay ahead, White said, "It's very difficult to portray the needed nuances in future climate." Yet it is a crucial task for journalists.

"The word 'global warming' has been a very effective rallying tool," said White, "but warming isn't the biggest concern, not by far." At issue are likely to be "changes in rainfall patterns and whether we can grow enough food," as well as what he calls "the two big ugly issues in the future": sea-level rise and abrupt climate change.

"The public does not recognize the non-linear element in climate change. They can't comprehend the possibility of a 10-15 degree centigrade change in their lifetime." Yet evidence of non-linear climate alteration is starting to appear.

White is seeing it in his own realm of study. "The glacier [research] community is now recognizing that these big ice sheets like Antarctica and Greenland have very non-linear behavior."

Warming temperatures are melting Antarctica's ice shelves, spawning massive icebergs (Photo/Josh Landis, National Science Foundation)

"To expect climate to behave in steady, predictable ways is nuts," White said. "That doesn't mean we lack predictability -- preferred states -- but the jet stream can change, and it does…the climate comfort zone is going to be invaded."

How can journalists convey an understanding of that concept to the public? White isn't averse to using elements that people can grasp and relate to, like vanishing sea ice and what that means for polar bear habitat and survival.
"Scientists miss that, " White said. "Many of my colleagues complain that it's all about polar bears -- it is all about polar bears, it's all about seals. You use the ammunition you have."

"The media has an extremely important role over the next two decades in helping to get a clear message to the public. That's beginning to happen."

Ultimately, said White, "We need a partnership between media, scientists and political leaders to deal with sustainability" of the global environment.

"Climate is only one issue that will challenge us. We have to deal with water, pollution, overpopulation, nutrients that will sustain us…" While potential crises "sound far off in the future," according to White, the rate and scale of human environmental impact is "exponential." And people don't get that, which is what worries him.

At the heart of the matter is the ethical concern for future generations, White said, which is lacking.

Threatened polar bears have become a powerful symbol of the consequences of global warming (Photo/Dan Crosbie, Environment Canada)

"We're like a 10-year-old with our foot on the gas pedal, but we can't see over the steering wheel. You just hope you don't hit a tree."

In order "to go into the future with foresight and knowledge, not haphazardly," said White, it's going to take a concerted joint effort, one in which journalists play a key part.

"We need a partnership between those of us who study the problems, between those who take the message to the public, and policymakers who have to make decisions," he said.

White said the press must "keep a long-term role in investigating," to be a "gadfly…to make sure scientists and politicians are not trying to pull the wool over our eyes." At the same time, White challenges his scientist colleagues to understand better "the world of the media, what journalists are up against." He lauds programs like CU's Center for Environmental Journalism, which is dedicated to improving reporting on environmental science and fostering better communication between scientists and the press.

Only with such a focus can society begin to define solutions for a sustainable future, said White. "The time frame between when we realize we have a problem and when we need to find a solution" has been collapsed, he contends, and it's up to journalists to help get that word out.

"The press has an obligation to recognize that we are in a very important transition in the human occupation of the planet," said White. "We can't consider ourselves passive riders on Spaceship Earth. We're not passengers, we're drivers…We need to decide soon where we're going to go."