The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media

Politico’s Blunders on Climate Story:Science and Journalism Principles Violated

Bud Ward — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:59:55 +0000

It wasn’t so long ago that a number of leading climate scientists felt they needed a “rapid response mechanism” to forestall flawed climate reporting before it took off like a wildfire across the nation’s and world’s news sections. The result was realclimate.org, spearheaded largely by scientists Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt.

Times have changed sufficiently that reporters now have their own brand of rapid response mechanism, throwing cold water on blistering hot, and blisteringly flawed, climate change reporting before it gets much out of the starting gate.

The example du jour is a Thanksgiving week story by the politically well-connected and well-regarded (and Washington-influential) politico.com.

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Behavior-Changing CommunicationsFor Climate Change ‘Six Americas’

admin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:59:45 +0000

Newly released research on effective messaging to Americans regarding needed climate change actions points to discrete audience segments and urges careful targeting at each of six different group’s concerns, needs, and values.

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Assignment Greenland: Toledo BladeReporter Tells Story Behind the Story

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:37:34 +0000

Tom Henry, veteran environmental reporter and columnist for The (Toledo) Blade, didn’t know just what to expect when he was called into a top editor’s office. The message? He was told to prepare for the assignment of a reporter’s lifetime. Here he tells the story about what led to his outstanding series on climate change in Greenland and its relevance to a Great Lakes region audience.

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The Ongoing 30-Year Lyme Disease War:Case Study of a Failure to Communicate

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:36:50 +0000

Lyme disease, dubbed one of the “deadly dozen” by a recent Wildlife Conservation Society report, could skyrocket as global shifts in temperature and precipitation transform ecosystems.

From a public policy standpoint, the situation is compounded by the communications issues complicating it, bringing to mind the well-known quote from the late actor Strother Martin in the 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke” — What we’ve got is failure to communicate.

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Obama Video Talk to Governors Prompts ‘Surprise’ Tone in Much News Coverage

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:36:06 +0000

Surprise - that President-Elect Barack Obama is confronting climate change in the midst of deepening global economic woes - and, again, surprise - that he took on climate change directly and firmly weeks before he officially takes office January 20.

Those were the hallmarks of several key news organizations’ reporting on the Obama taped video message November 17 to a climate change meeting of governors in California.

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Obama, Financial Crisis, Climate Change:Rocky Road Ahead for Journalism and Climate

bdawson — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:49:10 +0000

After Hurricane Katrina, An Inconvenient Truth, the 2007 reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and other events pushed the climate change issue higher on the public agenda, it may have seemed that it wouldn’t soon slide back down.

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Media’s Presidential EndorsementsOffer Insights into Wanted Next Steps

blieberman — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:48:42 +0000

Newspaper endorsements in a presidential election reveal more than where the nation has been or where it is now. They point the way toward a national agenda for the future.

By that measure, most American newspapers saw little room on the next president’s “To Do List” for action on the climate issue. Perhaps it’s not surprising, given the recession and world financial crisis, grinding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a broken health care system, and continuing worries about public education and U.S. competitiveness.

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Common Climate Misconceptions:Tipping Points and Abrupt Climate Change

zhausfather — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:47:56 +0000

It is difficult these days to find an article about climate science without some mention of tipping points and the risk of abrupt climate change.

Some prominent climate scientists and policy proponents have warned ominously that we have only a decade left to change our ways to “avert catastrophe.” The clock is running.

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Jimmy Carter’s Solar Panels:A Lost History That Haunts Today

jwihbey — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:44:57 +0000

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.

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Climate Change, Coal Mining/BurningHighlights for 800 SEJ Participants in Roanoke

Bud Ward — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:30:10 +0000

ROANOKE, VA. - The annual fete and feast known to environmental reporters as the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference this year offered some 800-plus attendees a diverse menu of climate change, coal, energy, and related morsels.

The October 15-19 field trips, roundtables, panels, and keynotes dealt extensively with the promises and challenges of coal mining, primarily through mountaintop removal, and of coal combustion in a carbon-constrained economy many see as inevitable in coming years.

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