Climate change, science, the media, and public opinion

Science and the media have the power to shape public opinion on climate change. Communicating competing arguments requires the goals of objectivity, independence, balance and fairness to be adhered to. Overcoming bias in communicating divergent scientific opinion requires facts to be accurately presented and not distorted by a selective use of the available information.

Climate change is a complex environmental problem, built on cross-disciplinary knowledge from many sources – a range of scientific disciplines, mathematical modelling, economics, sociology, law and policy. Climate change is also a controversial issue. As a result, climate change creates significant challenges for communication for science and the news media. For very different reasons, polarisation of public opinion can arise.

Communicating the findings of scientific research in ways that the public understands is not always a strength of science and can lead to public opinion becoming polarised:

"Engineers [and scientists] are a pain to deal with … They speak a language that 99% of the human race cannot understand. They have two hemispheres in their brains, just like the rest of us, but they insist on using only one of them, the logical analytical side."

Dale Gorczynski (1991)

As science does not generate exact knowledge with logical certainty, divergent scientific opinion on any issue will always exist, making some degree of polarisation unavoidable. Mathematical models are used to predict the probability, not the certainty, of climate change. Models may be of varying accuracy and become a source of scientific uncertainty.

A further problem for science is in communicating environmental risk. Decisions by science that an environmental risk, such as climate change, may be managed and reduced to an acceptable level may not always provoke public confidence. Public opinion may be quite different from scientific opinion as to what represents an acceptable level of risk.

For the news media, a great deal of research suggests that conflict is the inevitable outcome for the media when controversial issues are reported to make the public fully aware of the issues. When there is a wide diversity of news media sources involved in communicating controversial issues, members of the public identify with the media opinion that they understand and accept. In these circumstances, public opinion may become polarised.

The status of polarisation of public opinion on action for climate change in Australia, today, can be gauged from the findings of the following polls published in March 2011.

A poll undertaken by Sydney radio station 2GB received responses from 21365 people. In response to the question "Do you want your Federal M.P. to vote in favour of a carbon tax", 98.7% of the responses answered "No".

A poll undertaken by Essential Media Communications sought responses to the question, "Do you support or oppose the Government's recent announcement to introduce a carbon pricing scheme from 1 July 2012, which will require industries to pay a tax based on the amount of carbon pollution they emit?"Forty-nine percent opposed the introduction of the carbon pricing scheme; 38 % supported it.

It should be emphasised that the methodology used in these polls needs to be evaluated to ensure that accepted sampling principles have been adhered to, in terms of random sampling, freedom from bias and representativeness in sampling. This would ensure that the poll findings on part of the population sampled are statistically sound and can be extrapolated to the wider Australian community.

Notwithstanding this qualification, one conclusion can be drawn from these polls: public opinion is Australia is polarised on the question of action for climate change.

The disadvantage of polarisation is that public and scientific debate in Australia has degenerated to discredit those who oppose climate change as "sceptics. A similar tactic was used in the past to marginalize and to dismiss opponents of development: "Greenies" described those who disapproved development that had potential adverse environmental impacts; "NIMBY-ism" (the acronym for 'Not In My Back Yard') described communities who protested over development proposals in their neighbourhood. This tactic is inconsistent with accepted principles for conflict resolution and consensus decision-making.

The fault for polarisation of public opinion cannot be directed, exclusively, at science. Nor can fault be solely attributable to the news media. Politicians have also had a key role in contributing to this problem.

What issues should science and the news media focus on to shape public and political opinion to enable Australia to 'move forward' to take appropriate action for climate change? The observations of Donald Rumsfeld on 'facts and the varying degrees of scientific uncertainty' provide a good framework for identifying some of the issues needed to promote informed public debate away from polarisation towards consensus.

"Known knowns: Things we know, we know"

The normal passage of infrared radiation is for it to move from the sun through space to the earth's surface and then to be reflected back into space. The "greenhouse effect" was the initial term used to describe global warming. It arises because of a significant atmospheric increase in greenhouse gases, which act as a barrier causing the reflected radiation to return to the earth's surface.

In order of abundance, the three most significant naturally occurring atmospheric greenhouse gases that contribute to the "greenhouse effect" and global warming are water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane.

The concentration of water vapour is not uniform across the earth's surface. It varies, depending on location (greatest above oceans, lowest above deserts), scale (regional/local) and degree of cloud cover. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be increased by the burning of fossil fuels. Methane is released into the atmosphere by herbivorous animals, classified as ruminants. Microflora breakdown of herbage occurs in one of their four stomach compartments (the "rumen"). There are about 150 domestic and wild species of ruminants including cattle, goats, sheep, alpacas, antelopes, camels, deer, giraffes, llamas and yaks.

The policy action for climate change in Australia is now based on a Carbon Tax-ETS 'combination'. A "Low Carbon Economy" ("LCE") is its goal.

There are a number of elements to a LCE. Over time, there will be a sequential reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide, directed at eventually reaching a zero level of emissions. The end-point is for the carbon economy to be replaced by a clean (renewable) energy economy.

Nations that signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol would have done so believing global action to combat climate change was necessary. The Kyoto Protocol recognizes that actions for climate change taken by each country will reflect their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, there is a two phase plan of action to combat climate change. Nations must meet their emission reduction targets "primarily" through "national measures" which "promote sustainable development". The Treaty also offers nations "additional means" of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms e.g. an ETS.

Achieving sustainability requires a systematic evaluation and balancing of multiple and conflicting objectives – ecological, economic, social and cultural – in order to secure as much available value as possible for Government, industry and the community.

A sustainable solution does not place inordinate weight on one objective as does a Carbon Tax-ETS on economics.

The ETS had its origin in the northern hemisphere, in the early 1980s, to limit sulphur dioxide emissions which caused acid rain. Australia was only a small contributor to these emissions on a global scale and chose to limit emissions, nationally, by regulatory control - not an ETS! A national air quality standard for sulphur dioxide applies throughout Australia to limit emissions.

Following a landmark decision by the US Supreme Court in 2007, the Obama administration took steps in 2009 for the nation's 500 coal fired plants to become subject to regulatory control for global warming pollution, for the first time, at the Federal level. Regulatory control gives effect to the "polluter pay principle": the costs of pollution are borne by those responsible for it.

In December 2010, the United States EPA announced an agreement reached for developing cost-effective and protective national GHG standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries – industrial sources representing 40% of GHG pollution in the United States. Air quality standards will be proposed later this year followed by final standards in 2012. Regulatory control standards to decrease GHG emissions of Model Year 2012 through 2016 cars and light trucks were completed by the EPA in 2010.

"Known unknowns:Some things we do not know"

We do not know the reasons why, unlike the United States, Australia has never considered regulatory control and a national air quality standard for carbon dioxide as part of a mix of national measures under the Kyoto Protocol to limit emissions?

There has been little, if any, informed debate, systematic evaluation or media reporting on the option of reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Australia, based on 'a mix of national measures' as set out in the Kyoto Protocol 'to promote sustainable development'.

It is unknown what time lines carbon capture and storage research requires before it becomes accepted as an environmentally sound technology to counter the risk of global warming and to become a national measure under the Kyoto Protocol.

We do not know if there are any "climate science" issues that AGW scientists and the so called "sceptics" share as common ground? We do not know the reasons why some issues remain in dispute?Information conflicts arise when scientists differ in how they interpret the same scientific database; or differ in their professional opinions on what information is relevant and reliable. Scientific uncertainty and lack of information creates further conflict.

It is unknown whether the action for climate change in Australia, based on a Carbon Tax-ETS and a LCE, is consistent with the guiding principles for sustainable development? Some possible adverse impacts arising from the Carbon Tax-ETS may include reductions in Australia's overseas mineral exports, significant increases in power costs for the manufacturing sector and the community, job losses and possible closure of mines, a restraint on strong, growing and diversified economies in regional Australia, through to social justice issues affecting the community.

The possibility for a Federal ETS in the United States has been described by one US commentator "as both fluid and frac­tured… cli­mate change re­form ap­pears to be some­where be­tween in­evitable and im­pos­si­ble".The passage of a number of climate ("ETS") Bills introduced to the US Congress since 2009 has stalled.

"Unknown unknowns: The things we don't know, we don't know"

The extent of the contribution to climate change of greenhouse gases arising from human sources e.g. the burning of fossil fuels and natural sources e.g. water vapour, is yet to be critically defined?

Scientific knowledge on changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration over the long-term is extensive, but reliable data on atmospheric water vapour is limited to about the previous 10-15 years. Their interaction may influence the reliability of mathematical models? Depending on how water vapour fluctuates in the atmosphere – up or down - the impact may be to intensify or lessen the extent of global warming as carbon dioxide increases?

Depending on the timeframe, it is possible that if no global action is taken to limit carbon dioxide emissions, the impacts of climate change may become irreversible.

As renewable energy projects proliferate over time, the potential for conflict and litigation to arise over the development of the proposed sites and adverse impacts on the ecologically critical habitat of threatened species is real.

Ultimately, it will be for the electorate to decide what action Australia must take to respond to climate change in the national interest. But the trigger for the electorate making the best informed decision rests with science and the news media to shape, and to not follow, public opinion on action for climate change.