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Judging from some of the backchannel chitchat I'm encountering, we environmental journalists are hitting our collective head against a wall over the near-deafening yawp from global warming deniers.
The ratio of science-literate to science-challenged responses in our blog comments, email, and in-baskets is so unbalanced, the scale is broken. And mainstream reporting on climate change remains stuck in a time warp, where a few big snowstorms during one winter on one small part of a big continent, undercut the veracity of years upon years of recorded temperature increases across the globe.
It's tempting to become dispirited about reporting on climate change. What's driving this hostility and inattention to facts?
To answer that question, journalists -- at least the ones who care about being effective on the job -- often look for clues in the psychology or intellect of the reader. Not surprising, since our goal is to present well-sourced facts in as engaging a manner possible, to help readers understand and act upon the issues most important to them and to society. If we're getting our jobs done right (and we're always asking ourselves that, too), then the problem must be on the receiving end.
But poor grasp of science cannot be all that's at work here, since apparently science illiteracy is the norm in the US. (A factor that hasn't impeded all sorts of environmental and health policy reforms based on better scientific understanding as well as social progress.)
Even though the number of science literate citizens has tripled in the past two decades, it's still only 28% of the nation, reports Janet Raloff of Science News. Further, she notes, only one European nation's rate of science literacy exceeds that of the US: Sweden.
Despite that, public sentiment across the European Union nations seems firmly in favor of climate action.
US climate change skepticism can't just be a result of widespread paranoia, either, since global warming deniers are far from unique in the annals of pseudo-science conspiracy theories. UFO obsessives, chemtrail conspiracists, and free energy suppression believers also are sure that they have ferreted out a truth millions of others fail to perceive. Like climate change deniers, they all privilege sketchy sources of data and information over more coherent, verifiable, mainstream sources. And they're convinced that the government and scientists are in cahoots to hide information from the public, probably to get across some sort of social domination scheme. (This despite constant affirmations in the news that both politics and science are practically blood sports, rife with ambition and competition among participants.)
So why do these other pseudo-science conspiracists remain on the lunatic fringe, while climate change deniers have become all but middle-of-the-road?
Here's the major difference between them: there's not a lot of money to be made confusing the public about whether alien spaceships or perpetual motion are real. But CO2-intensive industries, such as oil, coal, and gas, have a lot to lose in the short term from climate, energy, and transportation policy reforms that cap and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
So or the past 15 to 20-odd years -- and this is not particularly new information -- they have actively poured funding into efforts that promote skepticism about global warming. In his book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, James Hoggan calls this effort "institutionalizing uncertainty."
The public broadcasting series Frontline has aired two excellent reports touching on these efforts to upend US climate action, which you can view online: 2007's Hot Politics, which looks in depth at the climate change denial "industry," and 2008's Heat, on market responses to the changing climate.
The energy sector pumps tens of millions of dollars into lobbying political officials. Greenwire has reported that in 2009, electric utilities spent $144.4 million for lobby efforts. The oil and gas industries spent $168.4 milion to influence the fate of climate and energy legislation in Congress (as well as tax legislation, health care, and government spending). That's upwards of 20% more than they spent in 2008.
By law, corporations have to report on how much they spend to lobby politicians. It's more difficult to track down political spending via other outlets, such as consulting and public relations fees. But given the enormous sums spent on lobbying, it seems reasonable to assume that there's a lot of fossil energy money sloshing around in these grey zones. And there are some facts to back that up: As Politico reported last year, the coal-industry-backed American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity paid close to $1 million to a public relations/lobby firm to create fake grassroots ("astroturf") opposition to federal climate and energy policy reform.
Now, influence spending by clean energy companies surged as well in 2009 -- up about 36% from the year before, according to Greenwire. Still, it added up to a mere $30.1 million. Green groups spent only around $22.5 million lobbying on energy and climate issues. This combined $52.6 million is still only raindrop in the the combined $300 million-plus river of spending by the energy and utility industries last year.
This may go a long way to explaining the recent rise in climate change skepticism. It comes down to the the old journalism adage: "follow the money."
Image: US Capitol coal-fired power plant. After years of pressure by the coal industry to keep it burning coal, despite known air pollution problems in the area, it was due to be switched entirely to natural gas by the end of 2009.
I used to work for the wind industry and even though I began to realise there was a massive attempt to defraud the public I kept supporting manmade warming because I thought: "OK, they're not the nicest businessmen I've ever met, but ... the science is sound".
Then eventually, I was forced to go and check this science that everyone told me existed. But where was it? Call it science, it is clap-trap! There was more evidence for WMD than manmade global warming!
The author is living a ferry tale past. This is not a few honest environmentalists against big oil, the big money is on the side of the carbon traders. These are not environmentalists but right-wing neo-con traders as willing to make money from carbon trading as trading in arms or oil, what do they care?
And forget it being left vs. right, the real divide is between the public who will be paying and the few rich private traders like Gore who are sucking up public money that should be spent on public services like healthcare.
And that doesn't mean that mankind is not heating the globe, but it sure doesn't mean a small bit of warming entirely within normal natural variation followed by a bit of cooling proves we are!
I hope you use your journalist skills to dig deeper into all the money flows TO both sides of the debate. Hint: Business will send money to influence which ever side is winning, often both, so you can't depend on that without details.
Here is my opinion as a reasonably well educated lay person:
If there is one thing I have learned over the last few years of closely following the news on climate change, it is that there has been no journalistic objectivity involved -- until Climategate.
Since then, there has been a clear division of the journalistic ranks. One side has chosen to go on listening to the now roundly discredited CRU, IPCC, Penn State crowd, while the other has started actually trying to find some facts.
If AGW was real, there would be massive efforts to curtail all greenhouse gas production -- not just CO2. Remember, methane is many, many times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Methane is produced by most animals along with a host of other sources, such as decaying biomass. Now.. one cow produces about 120 liters (roughly 30 US gallons) of methane per day. There are approximately 9,000,000,000 cows on the planet. That gives us 270,000,000,000 US gallons or 1,080,000,000,000 liters of methane per day from cows alone. That would mean 1.1 trillion US gallons per year from cows alone -- then there are chckens, ducks, sheep, goats, horses, people....
So why is no-one screaming for us all to become vegetarians to save the planet? Oh no... we have to stop driving our cars, shut down our industry and freeze in the dark while accepting lunatic taxes!
One decent volcanic eruption does more to the atmosphere than all man's efforts combined and we have many volcanic eruptions every year.
Quit flogging a dead horse. The whole Global Warming/Climate Change religion is a huge hoax and fraud so far as I can see.
I feel compelled to respond to the question "Is climate change caused by humans?" There is simply no doubt at all that humans are causing change. Without biodiversity loss desertification cannot occur - desertification is a symptom of biodiversity loss. When vegetation and soil-covering litter is lost on a square meter of soil the micro-climate changes - the soil surface goes through greater daily extremes of cold in the morning and heat at midday. Anyone who has ever gardened knows this as surely as water flows downhill. Not in dispute. When the many small areas like that of micro-climate change reach the extent of, for example, the man made Sahara, Tihama or any other desert (in what used to be largely grassland/savanna) we are changing macro-climate. We have been changing the climate for over ten thousand years and are only aware because of both modern technology and the speeding up of the process after discovery and large scale use of fossil fuels.
Biodiversity loss, consequent desertification and climate change are totally inseparable. Any human not acknowledging that climate change is being caused by humans, and I know many do, is tragically simply showing how environmentally illiterate we are. Equally tragic is that this level of environmental illiteracy extends to serious scientists in governments, universities and environmental organizations treating biodiversity loss, desertification and climate change as three separate issues. They are one issue. Sadly those sincere scientists and environmental organizations combating biodiversity loss treat it in a largely superficial manner as being of concern when charismatic species are being lost or species that might have future economic/medical use, etc. Biodiversity loss over most of the Earth's land surface begins not with species but with loss of bulk of vegetation and in particular soil-covering litter.
If you are interested in reading more of my thoughts and proof of the links between biodiversity loss, desertification and climate change you can find them in the article section of www.SavoryInstitute.com.
I agree with the author, sadly money corrupts! There is another interesting thought about the man made climate change deniers that should be examined which I illustrate with The Kübler-Ross grief cycle.
Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news.
Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.
Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.
Barganing stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.
Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.
Testing stage: Seeking realistic solutions.
Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward.
A common problem with the above cycle is that people get stuck in one phase. Thus a person may become stuck in denial, never moving on from the position of not accepting the inevitable future. When it happens, they still keep on denying it, such as the person who has lost their job still going into the city only to sit on a park bench all day.
Likewise, a person may be stuck in permanent anger which is itself a form of flight from reality.
I've been desperately trying to get a handle on global warming denial and I welcome this piece about how money talks. I'm struck though by the responses of two of the commenters above: the person who apparently had some unfortunate experiences working in the wind industry, now by extension says the science behind global warming is a hoax. The emotion there is evident - but what does it really have to do with climate change? Then there's the next comment that talks about how methane is a major contributor to global warming (this is not news), therefore since we don't want to stop eating meat and "freeze in the dark" (shades of the debate about north slope oil development - remember that?)we should just ignore the whole phenomenon. Thus I don't entirely agree with Emily that big money is the principle cause of climate change denial - a big cause, certainly, but not all. These two comments demonstrate that climate change has become a huge basket for people to dump their fears and mistrust into. It has less to do with our level of scientific literacy than it has to do with our level of fear and anger in a very fearful and angry time. But then maybe the fear and anger are deliberately sown by those with the big money. Kind of circular, isn't it? And discouraging.
Cecil: I agree that any industry needs attention when benefits from the federal government (aka taxpayers) are involved. The Interior Dept. is pushing hard to approve proposals for solar energy projects on public lands, for example -- it's important that they get reviewed thoroughly for potential impacts on wildlife, and the overall ecosystems they'll be built upon.
Canuck: The work of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, as well as the IPCC, is far from discredited. Numerous journalists have poured over those hacked e-mails, for example, and found nothing that undercuts the numerous proofs of human-propelled global warming.
What I wonder is why no one is yelling just as loudly to find who broke into the university's computers and stole files, as they are to pillory these scientists.
Plenty of people are calling for massive curbs in meat-eating to combat global warming! But as far as Americans are concerned, I think Mark Bittman has the right idea for when he suggests eating LESS meat.
Anne: Great observations, particularly that "It has less to do with our level of scientific literacy than it has to do with our level of fear and anger in a very fearful and angry time. But then maybe the fear and anger are deliberately sown by those with the big money."
This is what I was trying to get at with the comparison to UFO and free energy believers: no one bothers to harness their anger and fear, because there's no advantage to anyone's political or financial agendas to dispute these pseudo-sciences.
Fear and anger about changing how we live because of global warming, however: that's a very useful weapon to aim at discrediting very real climate scientists and climate science.
I find articles such as this one quite offensive and wonder at the motivation of the so-called environmental journalists that compose such fiction.
As a retired geophysicist I spent 42 years collecting, processing and analysing earth science data. I have been closely studying the climate change debate and the workings of the IPCC. My conclusion is that the studies by the IPCC have been unscientific as to method and thus have produced highly questionable results. This has been confirmed in at least two recently published scientific papers assessing their methods of "correcting" temperature data. Their Assessment Reports are nigh on ludicrous. Just about every disaster that could befall mankind is listed as imminent.
Because of my frustration with the bias in many jornalist's reports I am undertaking an analysis of the Bureau of Meteorology temperature data freely available on the Internet. So far my study has covered meteorological stations in the Australian Antarctic bases and in the north-west of the Australian continent. The average warming over these areas amounts to 0.5 degrees C per 100 years, a distinct difference from the IPCC figure of 1.9 degrees C per 100 years. The data does not show any indication that the warming arises from anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
The simple fact is that there is no relationship between the temperature of the earth and the amount of carbon dioxide in the air over the 4.2 billion years that the earth has existed.
Yes, the earth has warmed over the last 160 years because back in 1850 the world was in the final stages of the Little Ice Age. If it had not warmed we would still be in an ice age
and I doubt many people would relish those conditions whereby millions of people died and whole families were found frozen to death in their homes due to lack of food and fuel. That
was a real disaster!
As background your readers should know that in retirement, my only source of income is a self-funded superannuation pension and a part government pension. There is no sign of any offers from outside influences.
Currently the major environmental problem to be tackled is population growth with its accompanying land clearing for food and cities and the resulting pollution of the land, air and oceans. Carbon dioxide is simply a moderating part of the process of transmitting heat energy from the surface of the globe out into space after daily heating by the sun. The exagerated claims of global warming are detracting from the real environmental issues that could otherwise be addressed.
Hawkeye, since you are using a pseudonym rather than your real name, I have no way to even try to independently verify your identity as a retired scientist. And your position that CO2 is not a heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere is pretty incredible, in terms of not just contemporary earth sciences, but over 100 years of scientific inquiry. As you probably know.
It does puzzle me that you find facts about how some interests have sowed uncertainty about science "offensive," since they would presumably undercut your work as much as anyone else's.
Over-population is certainly an issue, since the Earth's resources are finite, while our ability to birth greater numbers of humans appears to be open-ended.
But I have yet to read a convincing argument that one dire problem trumps another for our attention and action. Climate change, population growth, crashing biodiversity, persistent organic pollutants, deforestation, overfishing, monoculture ag, air pollution, habitat loss, greenwashing...there's plenty of dire for anyone and everyone to pick from.
It appears to me that several of the comments on this article only serve to highlight the point that Emily made.
The objections to the science on Global Warming seem to be very strident, often vitriolic. And they tend to attack (and I use the word deliberately) either one tiny aspect of the science or, more often, a "straw man" of their own devising.
For example, of course methane is an issue. And changes to human agricultural practice over the last 8000 years have certainly increased atmospheric methane.
But, while methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, there is over 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. Hence the amount of warming methane contributes is 28% of the warming CO2 contributes. The sources of CO2 are also relatively easy to control, as opposed to every ruminant, rice field and peat bog in the world (to name just 3 sources of methane).
All of the objections so stridently raised in the comments above could quickly be addressed if the commenters went and looked at the science.
But then, I think that was the point of the article.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Shhhh....Follow the RED line. Only 2003 had MORE Arctic sea ice than TODAY!
Caution - This won't sell magazines or generate funding.
Ah, yes: Goodness knows there's no money in spreading bad information about climate change. That's why people chose to live lives of wealth and indolence as environmental publishers, writers and reporters.
Regarding Arctic sea ice, you need to look at several seasons over time to get a good idea of the trend, not just one month over 12. Here's the March 3, 2010 assessment from the National Snow and Ice Data Center:
"In February, Arctic sea ice extent continued to track below the average, and near the levels observed for February 2007. Ice extent was unusually low in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, and above normal in the Bering Sea. Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice reached its summer minimum, near the average for 1979 to 2000.
"Arctic sea ice extent averaged for February 2010 was 14.58 million square kilometers (5.63 million square miles). This was 1.06 million square kilometers (409,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for February, but 220,000 square kilometers (85,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in February 2005.
"Ice extent was above normal in the Bering Sea, but remained below normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Barents Sea, part of the East Greenland Sea, and in the Davis Strait."
I don't think it is a coincidence that the deniers are posting everywhere in the lead up to COP 15 and a US Senate vote on carbon caps.