The views expressed in these articles are those of the individual authors.
The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media is grateful for the generous financial support of the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment and of individual Yale University alumni.
The glass, aluminum, and stainless steel panels reclined at low angles and basked in the sun as the men in suits and ties, flanked by reporters, took to the West Wing roof to look at what they thought was the future. That day, June 20, 1979, was clear enough for the sun to bring out a bright reflection on the panels, and for shadows of those on the roof to be drawn dark and tight around them.
If Daniel Nocera’s energy vision prevails globally, each home and business will have its own, entirely sufficient power unit, charged by the Sun.
Industry-produced greenhouse gases will be vestiges of the old order, as solar-based “personal energy” systems power everything from televisions to plug-in electric cars and produce only water as a byproduct.
A ‘Sea Change’ in Findings from 1,300 Researchers?
Research scientists and journalists may be interacting lots more than generally thought, and the scientists’ experiences, at least, may be “far smoother” than generally thought.
That’s the gist of a new research report based on a survey of more than 1,300 researchers in the U.S., France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
A recent “kerfuffle,” as a headline writer for FOXNews.com termed it, once again underscored the influence of the blogosphere’s echo chamber - and just how quickly it can spread bad information.
The American Physical Society, APS, last month saw fit to “reaffirm” its official position on climate change after a flurry of online reports and comments erroneously stated that the group had reversed its 2007 stance that humans are causing global warming and that greenhouse emissions should be lowered.
With all the attention surrounding carbon dioxide these days, it is easy to forget that there are a number of other important natural and human-driven factors (”forcings” in climate circles) that influence Earth’s climate.
Changing ocean chemistry threatens the survival of marine life as much as warming temperatures. Understanding the basic chemistry of ocean acidification and the relevant consequences for people and wildlife are keys to effective journalism on an issue of growing importance and interest to media audiences.
President Bush, well into what is widely seen as his lame-duck period, last month proposed his administration’s first concrete plans to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Policy makers and many in the news media appear to have largely written-off the proposal as too little, too late, in effect saying it would amount to further delay rather than serious action.
Measuring Earth’s temperature is no easy task.
Four different groups produce temperature records that attempt to compile a single global mean surface temperature: NASA’s GISStemp, the Hadley Center’s HadCRU, Remote Sensing Systems’ RSS, and the University of Alabama, Huntsville’s UAH.
A respected social scientist, Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon University, sees his discipline having to play an increasingly critical role in the climate change arena if citizens are to become fully engaged and involved in the issue.