Performance Review: CJR on Journalism and Global Warming

Talking to people about global warming is hard. I'm closing in on a decade as a foot soldier in the vast effort climate activists and communications specialists have mounted to 'splain in clear and compelling terms to the public why we've no time left for dithering, and I don't think it's possible to overstate how crucial is the Fourth Estate's role in this slow-motion crisis, or how difficult it is for it to do creditable public service with this story.

So hie thee to Cristine Russell's consideration of the challenge journalists and news organizations face in reporting the climate change story to the public, in the July/August issue of Columbia Journalism Review. It's a must-read -- Russell, a Kennedy School of Government fellow and sitting president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, provides a far-reaching review of the current state of reporting on climate science, politics, and the labyrinthine debate over policy prescriptions and economic forecasts. She offers some sharp observations about the damage to public understanding that bad reporting habits -- "yo-yo" coverage that fails to put new science in context; overly sunny optimism about technological magic bullets; giving equal time to the denier camp in the name of balance -- can wreak.

Russell also describes how news organizations -- which, as the web erodes traditional business models, are already under intense fiscal pressure -- must improve internal communication and collaboration among reporters working on different climate-related beats:

Climate change will require thoughtful leadership and coordination at news organizations. Editors will need to integrate the specialty environment, energy, and science reporters with other beats that have a piece of the story—everything from local and national politics to foreign affairs, business, technology, health, urban affairs, agriculture, transportation, law, architecture, religion, consumer news, gardening, travel, and sports. “News organizations are increasingly asking what other beats are going to be affected by climate,” says veteran environment reporter Bud Ward, who edits a respected online journalism site, The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media. He notes that even Sports Illustrated has tackled climate change and its potential impact on everything from cancelled games to baseball bats. But, Ward worries, “it will be extremely difficult to explain the policy side of the debate” in the months ahead. Unless editors push hard for it, “there’s generally not the time or space for that kind of explanatory coverage.”

Finally, she gives reporters an expansive list of inquiries to pursue:

In the realm of science, what is the stability of ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica, and how will this affect rising sea-level estimates? What plants and animals are at most risk of extinction, and what can be done about that?

What about adaptation to climate change, both here and abroad? Regardless of new control efforts, greenhouse gas emissions already in the pipeline will continue to have warming-related impacts for decades to come. How will Americans cope with changing conditions?

In land use and transportation, what efforts are under way to push auto makers to improve gas mileage? What can drivers do today? Hint: it’s not just what you drive, it’s how often and how far (eco-driving anyone?). How does air travel compare? How can city planners encourage compact living to reduce a community’s carbon footprint? What else can consumers do?

In technology, what are the R&D prospects for biofuel alternatives like cellulosic ethanol, made from grass, wood chips, and other inedible plants? What about futuristic ideas like genetically engineered carbon-eating trees?

In policy, what lessons does the European Union’s experience have for the U.S. about possible carbon cap-and-trade schemes? How are the world’s countries doing at meeting their Kyoto Protocol targets, which expire in 2012, and how do they compare to the U.S.?

In economics, what can be done to make tough emission caps in the U.S. more cost-efficient? How can developing countries balance economic growth and better living conditions against rising greenhouse gases?

Internationally, what is being done to slow deforestation in the tropics, from Indonesia to the Amazon, which is estimated to cause almost one-fifth of human-induced global carbon emissions? What about population growth and the increasing number of environmental refugees forced to flee because of flooding, drought, or other problems? How will global health be affected by climate change?

How will climate negotiations affect the geopolitics of energy, and what does “energy security” really mean?

These are all topics critical to developing workable solutions to the mess we're in, and building the political will to move them forward. But in today's media landscape, each is obscured by a choking amount of misinformation and FUD. (If there's a flaw in Russell's analysis, it's that short shrift is given to the web's ability to knit all the kooks, er... skeptics, into a pretty powerful wrecking ball that can really damage public understanding. It's like rabid, Limbaugh–style talk radio, gone virulently word-of-mouth. It'll take a lot of good journalism and a very large, empowered, web-savvy army of climate activists to wrestle this beast to the ground -- but that's another post entirely.) It's my sincere hope that the journalistic profession enjoys its finest moment in the years just ahead -- that all that storytelling talent rises to the challenge, doggedly, relentlessly pursues the truth, and delivers it straight, no chaser, to a public that needs it far more than they currently realize.

UPDATE:  Alex Lockwood, a UK-based journalism prof, has penned a rich and incisive blog post that springboards off the CJR piece. Lockwood bluntly asserts that the climate crisis calls for advocacy journalism: "There is no objective when dealing with something of such critical importance.... No-one seeks objectivity on issues such as race or genocide; they’re just too big and important. These things are reported within an ethical context, and this ethical context is just as relevant for climate change." Instead, the press should "drive low-carbon living as one of its core journalistic norms." I agree. Go read the whole thing -- Lockwood's done a lot of very good thinking about this.