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At the moment there is no a single spokesperson for the global atmosphere; there are rather multiple competing interpretations of global warming.
Mass media constitute the arena in which these different versions are presented and discussed. “Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change”, by Maxwell T. Boykoff of the University of Colorado explores the different narratives around climate change.
In Laura Caciagli’s interview, the author talks about the new role of media, highlighting the factors that influence media coverage of climate change.

Prof. Boykoff, what’s your opinion on the new role of the media in communicating climate science and what do you think about the way media representations of climate change are produced and negotiated?

In my book I analyse media coverage of climate change because of its important role in reaching out everyday people. To keep myself up-to-date about the major topics of climate change, I participate in climate science conferences and workshops; I follow climate talks and negotiations as well.
But, in reality, very few people have access to the science literature and to policy documents so they generally rely upon media representations of climate change. Mass media help to interpret and translate important but difficult information and processes.
In terms of reaching a mass audience and shaping public awareness, public engagement as well as public support for positive action, mass media play a very important role and need to be studied carefully.

What do you mean by “competing frames” in your book?

Well, there are a lot of different ways in which mass media address dimensions and aspects of climate change. When I introduce the notion of “competing frames” I want to explicitly discuss how media rely upon actively shape public discussions on climate change and its impacts. For example, a charismatic leader talking about climate change action becomes a chance for the media to cover the issue. This, in turn, shapes ongoing considerations on action in the public arena.
Statements and pronouncements of leaders, politics and policy makers often become frames.
When covering climate change mass media mainly focus on few topics such as weather extreme events or charismatic megaphones like polar bears, while some important themes – i.e. socioeconomic aspects of climate change or environmental justice – are completely ignored.

{link:http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/who_speaks_for_climate/index.html} Who Speaks for the Climate? {/link} "In my book I analyse media coverage of climate change because of its important role in reaching out everyday people"

How could journalistic norms affect and influence media coverage of climate change?

In terms of socioeconomic factors I find the situation quite discouraging.
I think it is very challenging to cover stories such as those of climate change in a comprehensive, responsible way. At the moment hope is raised by some ONGs that are stepping forward to provide a connection between climate scientists and the media, although they remain small examples in a larger scene openly discouraging mass media consolidation and enduring.
As for journalistic norms, they really influence the ways in which stories are shaped and realized and how pieces of information are translated into news. In this process, the trend is to rely upon personalities and dramatic events with journalists trying to give a spectrum of opposing points of view. In this way the audience is provided with a framework of competing on the same stage but there isn’t any emerging difference if one point of view is brought into the media arena by a scientist, an opinion leader, a politician.
The journalistic norms that I have tracked on the book are personalization, dramatization, novelty, reliance on authoritative spokepersons and journalistic balance of opposing viewpoints. They all contribute to a coverage that coheres with dominant market-based and utilitarian approaches to discussing the spectrum of possible mitigation and adaptation action on climate change. The journalistic norm of balance in news reporting has in particular served to amplify outlier views on anthropogenic climate change and concurrently caused an appearance of increased uncertainty regarding this issue. This, in turn, has permeated climate policy discourse and decision-making.

Are climate experts able and effective in communicating climate change enough? Is there a way to improve their PR skills?

The role of expertise, authority and perceived legitimacy remain very important. To understand a changing climate we have to rely upon climate models and experts, whose role is critical in terms of reaching out the mass media and the public. As a scientist, I consider a duty and an extension of my work trying reach out the public and spread knowledge among the general audience.
In recent years, Internet and social media changed the situation a lot: today many people find information about climate change via Google searches, and the legitimacy checks in place there are much different than those in place in academic ‘peer review’. I think that these democratizing and complementary developments are net positive changes, with many more people discussing and participating. Yet there are costs as well. My book works through these sorts of issues in the context of 21st century climate challenges.

Why climate change has become so important in politics?

I think that climate has become very important in politics because it cuts our relationship with the environment and every aspect of daily life: how we work, travel, produce food and use land, how we play and relax. Curbing emissions has become central in considerations of critical phenomena such as poverty, inequality, justice and armed conflicts. More and more people recognise climate change as a central issue to discuss.

In your opinion, how can we improve media reporting on climate change?

Research like mine can help to re-consider media institutional practices and theirrelationship with the scientific and policy communities as well as with the public. Journalists should work to provide accurate metaphors in order to describe climate change and its impacts in a simpler and clear way.
Scientists too might improve their way to communicate this complex issue.
Media, scientists, policy actors and focus groups in the public must dialogue and cooperate to democratize these topics and inspire more reactive engagement about climate change. At the moment some media outlets are trying to connect journalists – especially those from developing countries who have no access to peer-reviewed articles – with the relevant experts in order to improve and foster the media coverage about climate change.

You may also be interested in:

• Nature’s challenges to communicate climate science – a post by TeC, the CMCC’s blog
• Maxwell Boykoff’s page at the Center for Science and Technology Policy
• The official page of the book “Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change” at Cambridge University Press website
• A review of the Boykoff’s book at Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media
• Andrew Revkin’s (NYTimes) Book Report in his blog Dot Earth

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The climate issue requires both scientific analysis and political decision-making. Perceiving climatic impacts, possibilities and necessities through the lens of political interests will hardly achieve long-term success. Quite to the contrary, a dispassionate scientific analysis is needed to present the various options in detail and thus to enable normative political decisions. To this end, climate research is in need of self-reflection. Fundamental scientific values such as contradiction, openness, sustainability, independence of individuals and falsification, enable science to unfold its potential as an action-guiding knowledge provider. For this purpose – Hans von Storch (GKSS Research Centre and) and Nico Stehr (Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen) explain – the natural sciences need input from the social sciences, cultural studies and a discerning public.

Knowledge of climate change

The global climate − what we call the statistics of our weather − is changing due to the impact of human activities. Temperature frequency distributions are presently witnessing a shift towards higher values that will continue almost everywhere in the foreseeable future; sea levels are rising and rainfall quantities are changing.
Some, but not all, extremes will change. The primary motor behind these changes is the release of greenhouse gases. That is the scientific construct behind man-made climate change.
But what is the public’s perception of climate change? That the climate is changing because of humanity. That the weather is less reliable than it used to be, and that the seasons are less predictable. Extreme weather takes on catastrophic, unheard-of shapes. What is the reason behind this? Human greed and stupidity.

Post-normal science

If science must remain uncertain in its concrete statements, if scientific statements are of great practical import to formulating policies and making urgent decisions while affecting societal values, then that kind of science is less and less driven by pure “curiosity” but rather by the usefulness of its possible statements to decision-making and politics. It becomes “post-normal”. Methodological quality no longer occupies centre stage, but rather societal acceptance.
Science in its post-normal stage relies on its consistence with cultural constructs. Knowledge claims are not only raised by recognized scientists, but also by other experts serving specific interests.
Climate research is presently in a post-normal state. Its inherent uncertainties are enormous since future projections must be made, and such futures can only be presented in the form of models and under conditions which have yet to be observed. This lack of knowledge has nothing to do with incapacity on the part of the scientists. Rather the problem lies in the scarcity of available facts and in the incomplete nature of instrumental data − it spans much too short a period for the collection of reliable data necessary for the description of climatic variations across decades and centuries. Naturally, arguments exist which favour one answer or the other, and some considerations of plausibility allow us to exclude certain developments as unlikely or even impossible. However, there remains a degree of uncertainty which may not substantially diminish for many years to come.
Under such circumstances, representatives of societal interests tend to pick those knowledge claims which best support their position. The scientifically untenable film The Day After Tomorrow has been praised for increasing public awareness; political and scientific achievements were mixed up when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore and the IPCC; professors have explained to the public – from a scientific angle – the supposedly inevitable reactions to the climate change.
In addition to such alarmist tendencies, there is also the skeptical counterpart, manifesting itself in such creations as Micheal Crichton’s State of Fear or the film The Great Swindle.
None of this can be considered what is rather vaguely described as “good science” where critical inquiry, clever testing and unconventional ideas result in real progress, rather than just being useful in the implementation of a policy which is perceived as being right.

The honest broker

But how should scientists deal with the present post-normal situation when both claims – conducting good science and giving sound advice to the public – are accepted as legitimate? For the analysis to achieve depth and substance it needs the help of the social sciences and cultural studies. Up to now, these two fields of study have more or less stood on the sidelines, while in fact there exist some excellent examples of successful supplementary social science research, e.g., the “Honest Broker” analysis by Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
According to this analysis, there are five types of scientists who engage in communication with the public in different ways.
“Pure scientists” are essentially driven by curiosity and have little interest in putting their research results in a societal context.
“Science arbiters” enable a correct understanding of indisputable scientific facts.
Both types fit well into “normal” science which is able to answer questions with a high degree of certainty, and whose answers are non-controversial regarding possible societal applications.
“Issue advocates” invest their scientific competence in the furthering of a value-oriented agenda. The consequences of scientific insight are narrowed to an interest-compliant “solution”.
The “honest brokers” widen the scope of practical options, thus enabling the political process to choose the “solution” which is desired by society.
The fifth type refers to the “stealth issue advocates” who are, by way of their actions, “issue advocates”, while pretending to be “science arbiters” or “honest brokers”.
Obviously, the “honest broker” is best suited to enable society to choose solutions to its controversies, despite uncertain knowledge about interconnections and possibilities, in a manner which is both rational and consistent with its values.

Sustainability

Science is a social activity which has the objective of creating new knowledge. Just like any other social activity, science can be conducted sustainably – or not.
Society expects science to create knowledge in order to aid in the understanding of a complex environment. Why do we entrust “science” with this role? The answer lies in the methods used by science. Scientific methods ensure that we are usually offered “coherent” interpretations allowing for actions which lead to the desired outcomes. “Incorrect” interpretations do occur, but tend to be rare. They are usually discovered sooner or later and replaced by a “coherent” interpretation.
According to science theorist Robert K. Merton, there are a few significant principles, such as disinterestedness and organized skepticism which present an idealization which can never be fully realized.
However, such principles do describe what the public views as a prerequisite for accepting knowledge claims. Only if such principles are respected, scientific practice can be conducted in a sustainable way, or, more specifically, only then will the public, the media and decision makers listen to our current post-graduate students as closely 20 years from now as they listen to us scientists today.
So, where does climate research stand when seen in the light of Merton’s criteria? Do self-serving interests influence research results?
There is no agreement on this matter: two camps, the “skeptics” and the “alarmists”, vehemently argue with each other over the political usefulness of their statements, while both groups only partly accept results as “correct” if they contradict their fundamental convictions.
Do knowledge claims undergo critical analysis and attempts at falsification by critical professional colleagues? – This area also has its deficits.
Gradual skepticism is accepted, while radical skepticism is punished by exclusion from the science community. In publicly debated cases over the past four months, falsification has been obstructed by the withholding of data required for duplicating the analysis.
In recent months, public trust in climate research has significantly eroded. For instance, Spiegel magazine questioned people as to whether they were personally fearful of climate change. In 2006, 62% agreed, while in 2010 only 42% agreed; in the US, Gallup asked people whether they believed the dangers of climate change were exaggerated; in 2006, 30% agreed, while in 2010 this figure had risen to 48%.
This erosion of trust is fundamentally based on a change of perception, since the key scientific messages about man-made climate change outlined above remain just as plausible as before.
The problem is that these key messages have been complemented with more messages – for instance regarding the extinction of species or the number of heat-related deaths; these are interesting scientific hypotheses, but they are again and again used argumentatively as politically relevant facts. The exaggerations in the report made by the second IPCC working group can be named as relevant examples.
These exaggerations, while minor in scale, contradicted the principle of sustainability in scientific practice. They made the representations by the IPCC look like a “bubble” which, in the eyes of the public, has now burst.
It is imperative that sustainability be restored; the most important element in this process is to restore the different functions of “politics” and “science”. It is the task of politics to arrive at decisions which have comprehensible and normatively acceptable consequences; science, however, must explain interconnections, independent of normative systems. Politics must not hide behind would-be scientific necessities – such necessities do not exist in climate policy, just as the goal of reducing global warming to two degrees in relation to the pre-industrial status quo has little scientific grounding. Science must not be guided by the political usefulness of its statements.
Politics and science may co-operate well as a team, but their roles and functions are completely different.

“One billion people, one planet” is the headline of Dot Earth. It addresses anyone interested in a clear-eyed exploration of risks and opportunities as humans head toward a peak population of approximately nine billion in the next fifty years. The aim of the blog is to examine efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits.

Dot Earth’s posts grow out of the flow of news and research on climate, energy, biodiversity, population, poverty, disaster risk, and related issues. These posts include relevant initiatives in the arts and communication. Mr. Revkin attempts to track the evolving state of the Climate Change Science¹ with a particular focus on questions that matter most to society: the pace and extent of warming and sea-level rise, the impact of climate change on extreme events, biodiversity, water, and other resources. He also attempts to realistically observe policy options and related political and economic issues.

Dot Earth is clearly less formal and more conversational than his news articles. It is interrogatory, being, as he defines it, “a journey or exploration of ideas, not a conclusive synthesis”. In fact, there is a real debate among Mr. Revkin and the lectors: their many comments about the article are proof that Dot Earth is informal and exploratory. It is a mutual exchange. Among his sources of information he mentions technical journals and leading scientists that discuss trends in particular fields but his sources of inspiration are the readers, providing him with direct and indirect suggestions on what they are anticipating.

1. myown footnote

Climate Inc. – The Business of Stopping Climate Change is a blog which seems to start with this postulate. To realise this aim, the blog brings together the views of academics, business managers, policymakers, journalists, and professionals. Joined in the same virtual space, together these different voices examine Climate Change, and the related change of society, focusing on how climate change will affect business in the near and far future. The editor, Professor David Levy, is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Enterprise and Regional Competitiveness (SERC) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, College of Management. His mission is “to foster a transition to a clean, sustainable, and prosperous economy”.

The Pages of the website are simple, intuitive, and easy to navigate. The colours of the cloudy sky and melted ice create a blue and white layout where guest posts and debates are hosted which anyone can join to reply to the articles. The welcome debate develops around themes like the carbon markets, the growth of carbon accounting, finance and consulting, and the measure of corporate carbon performance. Renewable energy and the clean tech sector, low-carbon technology and market strategies, as well as government, public relations and education around the climate are other important topics for Professor Levy, whose articles deepen the core news with the intent of creating a debate around them. Readers do not get lost in this build-up of information because the posts are well classified and because the editor filters the blog of miscellaneous news. He selects relevant issues and delves into them.

Several links bring the visitor to other worlds dealing with climate change. Subscribing to the RSS service, the reader can constantly follow the weekly up-dates of the website, and select among various analytical articles.