POPE PRIZE

Gregory Pope  |  1998 Essay  |  1999 Essay  |  2000 Essays
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2009 Essays

Essay 1
Princeton Professor Develops Cutting Edge Cancer Treatment
Miriam E. Bocarsly

Essay 2
As the Climate Changes, So Does American Media Coverage
Courtney M. Lix

Honorable Mention
Elizabeth R. Landau

 

As the Climate Changes, So Does American Media Coverage

It is difficult to write about climate change without sounding slightly alarmist at best, and crazy, at worst: polar ice caps melting, oceans rising, mass starvation, drought, flooding, severe storms… no more wine in France or fog in London, and New York City had better invest in gondolas to replace the subway. But after decades of fickle treatment by the American media, why has global warming become, please forgive, a cool issue to cover? Elle, the largest women’s fashion magazine in the world, proudly publicizes its May 2006 “Green Issue,” edited by Laurie David, activist and founder of stopglobalwarming.org, and touts the benefits of looking beautiful while keeping the planet beautiful too. Vanity Fair’s May 2006 issue is also “Green,” and the cover hails global warming as “A Threat Graver than Terrorism.” This is a very different attitude than the media of the early 1990’s, which delighted in George Bush Sr.’s nicknaming Al Gore “Ozone Man” and chuckled at enviro-extremism. Examining what went wrong in the American media’s coverage of global warming, and what is perhaps now going right, should improve journalists’ coverage of scientific issues and provide better understanding and communication between those trained in scientific disciplines and the rest of the American citizenry, in addition to helping mitigate the effects of one of the gravest environmental concerns in history. Michael Oppenheimer, a prominent climatologist and Princeton University professor, has been studying climate change for several decades, giving him a long perspective on the American media’s inconsistent coverage of the issue. As with many other topics, the ebb and flow in media attention can be tied to politics: global warming received lots of coverage during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the 1997 negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol, which the American government vetoed. “Afterward,” Oppenheimer writes in an email correspondence, “interest faded, and then Bush ignored the issue.” This is a major red flag: governments are notorious for ignoring issues that are complex or politically undesirable, especially those concerning the environment. Media coverage that only reacts to political actions will likely have egregious gaps on important scientific findings, especially environmental topics which require industry to alter its practices. Although Michael Lemonick, a senior science writer for TIME Magazine, agrees that the current Bush Administration “has given a huge amount of aid and comfort to those who didn’t want to deal with [global warming],” as the interview progresses, he points out that some of the media coverage has been consistent and responsible. Lemonick wrote the first cover story on global warming for TIME, in 1987. He says that back then the science was “much more theoretical, and the models were very crude” so there was a lot of room for questioning the validity of the science. Still, he says, “I wrote the article leaning towards taking [global warming] seriously.” He adds that in 1989, instead of a Person of the Year, TIME featured the “Endangered Earth,” and prominently discussed global warming. In 2001, in the fervor over the Kyoto Protocol, Lemonick wrote about global warming again, declaring within the first few paragraphs, “the debate is over.” But apparently Lemonick’s certainty was not yet widely shared among journalists or the average American. Author Anne Matthews’ non-fiction book Wild Nights: Nature returns to the City concludes with a chapter titled “Rising Tides” and presents various predictions about the fate of New York City as climate change occurs. She says in an email correspondence, “When Wild Nights came out, in the spring of 2001, global warming was not well accepted even among educated readers, so most reviewers for general publications tended to say, ‘Loved it, except for that crazy, depressing final chapter.” While this was the standard response in America, Matthews adds that, “For some reason, the British reviewers were much more accepting of warming and its urban consequences.” While the intimate details pertaining to climate change can be quite complex, the general cause and effect is not complicated: energy from sunlight enters the earth’s atmosphere; Earth itself absorbs some of this energy, which warms the surface temperature of the planet, and some energy is also reflected back into space, naturally allowing the planet’s surface temperature to cool—unless carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons and other “greenhouse gasses” in the atmosphere absorb the radiated energy, effectively preventing the reflective cooling and causing temperatures on Earth to rise slightly higher, inducing the “greenhouse effect.” Warmer temperatures cause a host of changes that affect each other: melting ice causes ocean levels to rise, thus a lot of the current coastline will disappear beneath the sea; warmer ocean water also causes a change in current flow, which in turn will affects the weather on land: changing temperature and rainfall conditions will affect people’s lives and livelihoods, even far inland. Mark Hertsgaard, who wrote the lead article in the May 2006 Vanity Fair offers evidence for the difference that Matthews saw in British and American reviews of her book. His article exposes well-funded, powerful campaigns that fed American journalists misinformation, keeping them, and therefore their readers, in a cloud of confusion about whether global warming was a “liberal hoax” and flawed science—a resistance that was muted or nonexistent in Britain. If this is a major factor in the American media’s coverage of global warming, then the press is guilty of irresponsible reporting: journalists are supposed to be skeptics themselves, and check their facts. But Lemonick understands why so many journalists were hoodwinked: “the shrillness of a message can overcome minority opinion, especially if it’s catchy.” More than catchy, though, the skeptics had a more simple, and comforting, message: ‘The science is wrong. And even if it the climate is changing, it’s not your fault.’ Levels of carbon dioxide, the most prominent greenhouse gas, have fluctuated naturally throughout history, so much of the confusion about climate change has stemmed from whether human carbon dioxide emissions were really the cause of the increased levels, and therefore, whether we could (or should) do anything about our emission of the colorless gas, given the likelihood that reducing our fossil fuel consumption would have some initially negative economic impact. In contrast, the climatologists were pressed to present hard evidence that the climate really was changing, using rough models which indicated that the average temperature on Earth might be warming a few degrees Celsius, which may eventually cause glacial melting, massive flooding, increasingly violent hurricanes, and other apocalyptic changes. Most weathermen on the local TV station are lucky if they get the prediction for the next day’s weather exactly correct, let alone the next week. While weather forecasting focuses on the short-term effects and impacts, climatology delves deeper into the underlying controls and variation in long-term weather patterns. If predicting the weather tomorrow is tricky, try predicting it a hundred, or even just fifty, years into the future: of course there is uncertainty in climate prediction and of course the skeptics exploited this point. Despite the temptation to make clever propagandists the scapegoats of this media debacle, other causes, more fundamentally related to the practice of journalism itself, seem to have had greater influence on the disproportionate attention that the American media devoted to climate change skeptics. The scientific community has identified the American journalistic credo of “balanced reporting” as an especially problematic philosophy when addressing scientific issues. Climatologist Denise Mauzerall, also a Princeton University professor, gestures to the shelves of books at the back of her office. “See the thick blue ones,” she says, “those were put out by the International Panel on Climate Change—about five hundred international scientists discussing issues for five years. And some journalists would take that, and then call up someone like Fred Singer [a professor at George Mason University and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project] who is skeptical, and then write that there’s disagreement in the scientific community.” This is “quite misleading,” she states firmly. Giving equal weight to all sides of a story leads to a disproportionate amount of coverage of a small minority, and exaggerates the influence of fringe viewpoints, like the climate change skeptics. “There are always interest groups, like the oil lobby, that are ready to feed [the media] contrary assertions,” Oppenheimer says. Papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals document and quantify the disproportionate coverage that American reporters have given to the decriers of climate issues. Maxwell and Jules Boykoff, brothers who hold professorships at University of California, Santa Cruz and American University, examined the coverage in four “prestige papers”: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal from 1988 to 2002. They found that only about thirty-five percent of the articles emphasized the dominance of anthropogenic climate change effects, the belief of the vast majority of the scientific community, while nearly fifty-three percent presented balanced coverage of views, i.e. also presented uncertainty as a significant concern, on the anthropogenic contribution to global warming. Scientists are not alone in declaring that balanced reporting is a biased practice and should be abandoned. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, authors of The Elements of Journalism, pointedly do not include “balance” as a principle of journalism. Stating that it can lead to distortion, they specifically cite the press’ treatment of global warming. “As journalists know,” they write, “often there are two sides to a story. And sometimes balancing them equally is not a true reflection of reality.” Fiona Harvey, a British reporter interviewed by Vanity Fair agrees that “balance” is not viewed as an important component of journalism in her country precisely because it can lead to a misrepresentation of scientific fact and give readers a slanted view of issues. But perhaps the American compulsion to equally cover all scientific views stems from a more basic problem: that journalists are often ill prepared to think critically about scientific issues. Oppenheimer believes this has indeed influenced the way the American press reports on climate change; inappropriate coverage can in part be attributed to “inexperienced reporters and editors who are ignorant of science, and knowledgeable reporters who become jaded,” he says. Lemonick acknowledges that “many journalists aren’t informed enough; certainly not at the local level.” The inner workings and subtle effects of the atmosphere are dense reading. A random selection of a 1992 Nature article on climate change, written by atmospheric researchers Bonan, Pollard, and Thompson mentions “penetrative plume convection, planetary boundary-layer mixing, solar radiation… and semi-Langrangian transport of water vapor” in the second sentence. It’s understandable that journalists look for a translation of this writing, or a message that they can understand, which may unfortunately be that the science is faulty. Mauzerall, too, feels that “we need more journalists with a science background” in order to provide the American public with a better understanding of science and its implications. She is quick to point out that there are some very good journalists, and praises Andy Revkin at the New York Times, although even the best journalists sometimes goof. For example, scientists measure in degrees Celsius and Americans think in degrees Fahrenheit, and a journalist will “write an article and not mention degrees at all,” she says. But 40 degrees Celsius is equal to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Degrees matter. And journalists must understand this in order to convey scientific findings in a manner that they can properly inform citizens. This barrier of ignorance between non-scientists and scientists is perhaps the most difficult to overcome, but science journalism courses and an increasingly media-savvy science community are improving the communication between the two. Still, changing the media’s fundamental comprehension of science will take time and this latest shift in media treatment of climate change has been quite rapid. Five years ago, the Publisher’s Weekly review of Matthew’s book stated, “When concentrating on the animal and human city dwellers, the book soars. Unfortunately, it concludes with a thudding, apocalyptic vision. Using dire but unproven computer-generated prophecies, Matthews belies the life-affirming bulk of her book by offering a world-to-be of global warming, overpopulation and disease-ridden slums." Yet, this month’s Vanity Fair features computer-generated photographs of the Hamptons, New York City, and Washington D.C. inundated with water from rising sea levels. The April 2006 cover of TIME proclaims: Be Worried. Be Very Worried. Mauzerall watched a Fox News documentary on global warming last November. “I was shocked,” she says. “It was a good show.” Why the change in media attention? Hurricane Katrina gets a lot of credit. Warm ocean temperatures have been linked to more frequent and violent hurricanes, thus, as the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide, the occurrence of strong storms should increase. The immense devastation, death, and economic loss—estimated at over 100 billion dollars— that Hurricane Katrina caused, with the specter of similar, or more violent, storms to come—make the Bush Administration’s reasoning that imposing emissions standards on American cars and factories would cause the loss of 5 million jobs, and therefore hurt the economy, seem short-sighted. Lemonick recounts a conversation with Steven Scheider, a climatologist at Stanford University, who, back in 1993 told the TIME writers that they “should be writing about [climate change] every week.” But, Lemonick contends, writing about climate change every week, with no new information “will just make us look stupid.” The environment has long been seen as rarely newsworthy, unless there was a total disaster, like the Cuyahoga River fire in 1969. But as more scientists are studying the climate, aided by the improvements in computer capability and predictive modeling since the late 1980s, new information is being released almost every week. Most of it is grim: as the Arctic sea ice melts due to rising sea temperatures, polar bears face reduced hunting grounds and time; warmer temperatures are also facilitating the spread of disease in tropical frogs. Even insects, often considered to be the hardiest of organisms, are not immune: the wintering habitat of the Monarch butterfly may become too rainy and cold for them to survive. On an optimistic note, Mauzerall and several colleagues have just released a paper finding that reducing methane emissions has global health benefits, and she says that the media publicized it well—even better than the press release that the scientists wrote themselves because “they gave it a spin with the public interest in mind.” But the new science is not the only factor fueling the media’s new vigorous reporting; the political climate is changing too. In early February this year, eighty-six evangelical leaders, famously at odds with scientific findings concerning evolution, signed a petition expressing concern about global warming and asking Bush to impose emissions limits. More recently, on May 10th, the House of Representatives submitted a bill that mirrors the “Sense of the Senate” which was passed (53-44) last summer, acknowledging that climate change is largely caused by anthropogenic actions and that the United States should work to reduce those harmful effects in ways that do not harm its economy, and encourage other countries to do the same. Other politicians are also tiring of the Bush Administration’s stubborn and slow response to reducing emissions: seven states in the Northeast have established a carbon-trading agreement, and 231 mayors across the country have voluntarily agreed to meet the standards set in the Kyoto Protocol (a seven percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions below 1990 levels by 2012) within their own cities. It is impossible to say the extent to which the American media’s insecurities towards writing about science, misguided journalistic practices, or exploitation by manipulative political opposition, have contributed to the confusion regarding global warming. But the media of the nation that emits the most carbon dioxide globally has certainly made many mistakes in its reporting on climate change; but now there is new hope that it will not make the same errors with other important scientific issues. Oppenheimer concludes that, “Overall, the media has done a mediocre job on this issue at best.” But change is in the air; Al Gore’s new film on climate change, to be released on May 24th, is aptly titled “An Inconvenient Truth.” Ozone Man returns to the media spotlight, although this time his message has received a standing ovation from crowds at the Sundance Film Festival. The latest media coverage should manage to convince most Americans that the global warming debate is over forever, but the attention cannot fade away any time soon. Lemonick concedes, “I think it’s almost impossible to get people to change behavior based on long-term effects. [But you can] present people with small things they can do to make them feel virtuous.” President H. W. Bush famously commented, “the American way of life is not negotiable,” asserting that requiring Americans to reduce their consumption and energy use is out of the question. Mauzerall, however, doesn’t think that people are inherently vested in energy use, “they want the services that energy can provide” and should therefore be interested in, and supportive of, alternatives that do not contribute to global warming but deliver the same benefits. It is, the science indicates, too late to keep anthropogenic-induced climate change from happening, but many scientists also add a plea for action: the research continues, and it is time for the American media to open the dialogue it should have raised two decades ago: spurring forward the research into alternative energy and fueling Americans’ eagerness to adopt fuel cell technology, hybrid cars, solar panels, energy efficient appliances, and support of restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. Attitudes, policies, and lifestyles still need to change in America in order to mitigate the effects of global warming; the media is finally on the right path, it just needs to make sure that American citizens are too. References Email Correspondence: Michael Oppenheimer, Anne Matthews Interviews: Michael Lemonick, Denise Mauzerall Bonan, Gordon, David Pollard, and Stanley Thompson. 1992. Effects of boreal forest vegetation on global climate. Nature 359: 716-718 Boycoff, Maxwell, and Jules Boykoff. 2004. Balance as bias; global warming and the US prestige press. Global Environmental Change 14: 125-136