GW in Ohio
03-14-2007, 01:59 PM
KEYSTONE — Global warming is the hottest story of our time, and it will get even bigger as the full implications of melting ice caps and rising sea levels percolate through the media pipeline and into general public awareness, a panel of journalists said last weekend during the American Bar Association's environmental law conference.
The discussion was focused on how the media has covered the story and whether or not public perception of global warming has changed in recent months and years. Among the questions the panelists tried to answer is why it has taken so long for the story to reach critical mass.
Most of the panelists credited Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," with helping to generate attention. The Democratic takeover in Congress has also advanced public debate, the panelists said. And even though the basic global warming science — heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere — is "third-grade" stuff, according the Wall Street Journal's John Fialka, the issues have been clouded by a massive, industry funded propaganda and disinformation campaign aimed at creating uncertainty.
But now the issue is taking center stage, and journalists must help explain the evolving story in terms that readers can understand, by showing them how the impacts will affect their lives, the panelists agreed.
Widespread impacts
"If the scientists are anywhere near right, we can expect massive dislocations," said Fialka, of the Wall Street Journal's Washington, D.C., bureau. As always, the biggest burden will fall on the poor when sea levels rise and disease vectors grow in developing countries, he said, adding that those impacts will subsequently require the charity of developed industrial countries.
The next section of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, focusing on global warming impacts, is due to be released at a meeting in Belgium next month. A draft version of the report says that, within a few decades, hundreds of millions of people will face water shortages, while tens of millions will be flooded out of their homes. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread, pests like fire ants will thrive and by 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos. By 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the IPCC draft report.
"We live in a country where more people care about the death of Anna Nicole Smith than the death of a planet," said moderator Judy Muller, a long-time NPR contributor and associate professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism.
Most of the panelists agreed that there has been a huge change in public perception of the global warming issue just in the past year. After explaining that the story has been reported for several decades, they tried to answer the question of why it has taken so long to catch hold.
The challenge at this point may be explaining the full import of global warming, said ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore, who's been reporting on the issue for more than two years.
Blakemore, who has covered numerous wars over the years, said global warming is the most challenging story he's worked on.
"It's surreal to have pre-eminent scientists tell us very seriously that civilization as we know it is over," Blakemore said. "The scale is unprecedented. It touches every aspect of life."
Cost and consensus
For one thing, it's becoming clear that global warming is going to cost — big-time — across all sectors of the economy.
"All the major stakeholders are going to take a hit — unions, the energy industry, everybody," Fialka said.
"The public debate is lagging way behind scientific consensus, which is as strong as the consensus on the link between smoking and cancer," said author Eugene Linden, who penned a recent book on the issue called "The Winds of Change; Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations."
According to Linden and Blakemore, the global warming issue has been the subject of a massive, industry-sponsored disinformation and propaganda campaign aimed at creating the perception that there is still a scientific debate on the basic facts of global warming.
"We have been spun by Exxon and Peabody Coal," Blakemore said, comparing the situation to the long-running effort by tobacco companies to create uncertainty about the health risks of smoking.
Political context
"We had a chance to have a reasonable debate," Linden replied. "Instead we had denial. The Bush administration and a Republican Congress had years and years to frame a response to global warming that doesn't involve government regulation," Linden continued.
But that never happened because the Republican leadership never acknowledged that global warming exists, said panelist Margaret Kriz, who covers energy and the environment for the National Journal.
"The people who set the agenda didn't believe, so for all practical purposes, it didn't exist," Kriz said, singling committee chairs like James Inhofe, who loudly claimed that global warming was a hoax, using his leadership role on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as his pulpit.
Linden said those denialists are now losing credibility by changing their tune.
"They're now saying the climate is changing, but that it's natural," he scoffed. "It's not as if global warming will only hit liberals. It's an equal-opportunity destroyer. And the hardest thing of all will be admitting that those insufferable environmentalists were right," Linden said.
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070313/NEWS/103130045
The discussion was focused on how the media has covered the story and whether or not public perception of global warming has changed in recent months and years. Among the questions the panelists tried to answer is why it has taken so long for the story to reach critical mass.
Most of the panelists credited Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," with helping to generate attention. The Democratic takeover in Congress has also advanced public debate, the panelists said. And even though the basic global warming science — heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere — is "third-grade" stuff, according the Wall Street Journal's John Fialka, the issues have been clouded by a massive, industry funded propaganda and disinformation campaign aimed at creating uncertainty.
But now the issue is taking center stage, and journalists must help explain the evolving story in terms that readers can understand, by showing them how the impacts will affect their lives, the panelists agreed.
Widespread impacts
"If the scientists are anywhere near right, we can expect massive dislocations," said Fialka, of the Wall Street Journal's Washington, D.C., bureau. As always, the biggest burden will fall on the poor when sea levels rise and disease vectors grow in developing countries, he said, adding that those impacts will subsequently require the charity of developed industrial countries.
The next section of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, focusing on global warming impacts, is due to be released at a meeting in Belgium next month. A draft version of the report says that, within a few decades, hundreds of millions of people will face water shortages, while tens of millions will be flooded out of their homes. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread, pests like fire ants will thrive and by 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos. By 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the IPCC draft report.
"We live in a country where more people care about the death of Anna Nicole Smith than the death of a planet," said moderator Judy Muller, a long-time NPR contributor and associate professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism.
Most of the panelists agreed that there has been a huge change in public perception of the global warming issue just in the past year. After explaining that the story has been reported for several decades, they tried to answer the question of why it has taken so long to catch hold.
The challenge at this point may be explaining the full import of global warming, said ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore, who's been reporting on the issue for more than two years.
Blakemore, who has covered numerous wars over the years, said global warming is the most challenging story he's worked on.
"It's surreal to have pre-eminent scientists tell us very seriously that civilization as we know it is over," Blakemore said. "The scale is unprecedented. It touches every aspect of life."
Cost and consensus
For one thing, it's becoming clear that global warming is going to cost — big-time — across all sectors of the economy.
"All the major stakeholders are going to take a hit — unions, the energy industry, everybody," Fialka said.
"The public debate is lagging way behind scientific consensus, which is as strong as the consensus on the link between smoking and cancer," said author Eugene Linden, who penned a recent book on the issue called "The Winds of Change; Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations."
According to Linden and Blakemore, the global warming issue has been the subject of a massive, industry-sponsored disinformation and propaganda campaign aimed at creating the perception that there is still a scientific debate on the basic facts of global warming.
"We have been spun by Exxon and Peabody Coal," Blakemore said, comparing the situation to the long-running effort by tobacco companies to create uncertainty about the health risks of smoking.
Political context
"We had a chance to have a reasonable debate," Linden replied. "Instead we had denial. The Bush administration and a Republican Congress had years and years to frame a response to global warming that doesn't involve government regulation," Linden continued.
But that never happened because the Republican leadership never acknowledged that global warming exists, said panelist Margaret Kriz, who covers energy and the environment for the National Journal.
"The people who set the agenda didn't believe, so for all practical purposes, it didn't exist," Kriz said, singling committee chairs like James Inhofe, who loudly claimed that global warming was a hoax, using his leadership role on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as his pulpit.
Linden said those denialists are now losing credibility by changing their tune.
"They're now saying the climate is changing, but that it's natural," he scoffed. "It's not as if global warming will only hit liberals. It's an equal-opportunity destroyer. And the hardest thing of all will be admitting that those insufferable environmentalists were right," Linden said.
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070313/NEWS/103130045