View Braasch’s Copenhagen Photos

COPENHAGEN, Sunday 20 December 2009 (7 am local time) — The 11th-hour “Copenhagen Accord” agreed to by the U.S., China, and three other major greenhouse gas emitting countries capped 14 days of frustrating negotiation, contention, oration, and demonstrations. The final agreement, while disappointing in so many ways, nonetheless came as an upbeat and unexpected outcome - an alternative to no agreement at all - and one that just might open the way for breakthroughs down the road.

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‘The little mermaid’ in Copenhagen Harbour.

Six freelance journalists - an eclectic mix of writers, climate bloggers, photojournalists, youth advocates, and educators - are submitting copy to The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media between December 7 and the scheduled end of the international climate negotiations in mid-December.

Get updates here - and check back often - for our correspondents’ unique takes on the goings-on.

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Gardiner sees a climate change ‘perfect moral storm.’

SEATTLE, WA. — First it was a scientific debate. Then it became also an economic and policy challenge. Now climate change is becoming a moral storm. Or maybe it always has been.

University of Washington associate professor and author Stephen M. Gardiner believes the latter is the case. A social scientist and professor of ethics, political philosophy and environmental ethics, Gardiner has studied the ethical and moral complexities of climate change for the past 10 years. But only now is that focus becoming a significant part of the broader discussion on what to do about the impacts of a changing climate.

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Chemists first theorized the process commonly referred to as “ocean acidification” in the 1970s, but only during the past few years have researchers begun to fully appreciate the threats it poses to ocean inhabitants such as corals and fish.

With few major studies yet completed, researchers over the past few years have been encouraging the U.S. to launch a coordinated ocean acidification research program. Authorized in March but not yet funded, the program’s overarching goal will be to decipher ocean acidification’s biological and economic impacts to enable informed and adequate response to the issue.

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Glance at the websites of major U.S.-based environmental NGOs and you’ll see a pattern. These bright and often busy websites frequently are stamped with a simple logo: a heron, an egret, a polar bear, or a leaf.

The contrast is instructive. These organizations founded in the ethics of 20th century conservation are trying to harness the power of 21st century media. The results are mixed.

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In the summer of 1988, as Yellowstone National Park burned and congressional hearings on global warming were being held in a sweltering Washington D.C., Tony Barnosky was digging into the floor of a Colorado cave.

Traveling back in time, as he wrote in his new book, Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming, Barnosky was uncovering ecosystems long gone - each shaped by changes in Earth’s climate.

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A recent Environmental Protection Agency finding that greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations” prompted references to an “historic” action in many headlines and news stories.

But whether the coverage surrounding that April decision was historic in terms of its quality, depth, and thoroughness … that is another question.

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It’s known as “Reggie” for short. And though it may be small, it’s said to be paving the way for something huge: a federal cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the country’s first public sector experiment with auctioning carbon permits, is up and running. It is consistently cited as a good “first step” - an example of how green ideals and good old American capitalism can work in harmony.

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Journalist Eric Pooley’s January 2009 Shorenstein Center critique and analysis of press coverage of climate change policy issues has generated substantial attention and on-going “buzz” in climate journalism circles.

After publishing freelance writer John Wihbey’s February 17 article and analysis of Pooley’s “discussion paper,” The Yale Forum asked four respected university-affiliated environmental and science writers their views on Pooley’s analysis: Their comments and Eric Pooley’s own reaction to those comments follow.

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A March 2009 Gallup Poll survey points to “the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade” of Gallup polling on the issue.

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