Climate change: what is really going on?

Second argument for journalists is the rule you’re taught the moment you step into a newsroom – if you want to be considered as a balanced reporter, you must seek out both sides of the story. This is where scientists who believe in climate change feel let down.

Dr Nigel Beebe is a senior science lecturer at the University of Queensland who is affiliated with the CSIRO. When asked his opinion on science versus journalism, he’s quick to stress that that’s not the way to look at it.
 

“I see it as two areas that need to be much more compatible,” Beebe says.

But Beebe’s main contention with science communication in mainstream media lies where the two professions’ methodologies are fatally different.

“Journalism is about weighing up one against the other and quite often when you’re telling a narrative about science, there may not be another side to that narrative. The journalist has to bring that into the conversation, whether it exists or not. I think a journalist needs to understand the process of science. You don’t need a science degree to understand that.”

There is just one angle where all evidence from all parties points to the same conclusion: that journalists don’t get the time to build a story properly… which is exactly what balanced, objective climate change reportage needs according to all of the experts I spoke to.

Like Beebe, Orchison doesn’t think science reporters need to have science degrees. Climate change “has been badly conveyed and it’s creating confusion and confusion leads to poor policy-making.”

Way back when, says Orchison, “when journalists wrote something, behind them was a news editor and sub editors who turned around and questioned what they were writing before it got published.” He says good education never hurt any journalist.

Unfortunately for you sitting at home scratching your head and wondering how it all went wrong, it seems that no one is optimistic, especially Beebe and those on the climate change action side of the debate. Beebe doesn’t see things improving.

“We (scientists) rely on evidence to make the next call where the rest of the world likes a tight story: a beginning, middle and an ending. The reader doesn’t know what’s behind the story and if there’s a different motivation there.”

Beebe refers to the statistics, which have confused most people from the start: “97 per cent of scientists who work and publish in the field believe in climate change and it’s journalists who have to talk to the other three per cent.”

Orchison’s view on statistics evokes Gallileo, who he notes was once the only scientist who believed that planets travelled around the sun. “There is no such a thing as a view settled by the preponderance of scientific opinion,” he concludes.

So, we’re back to the fairytale – where the reality is that no matter what you think, if you live on Planet Earth and absorb mainstream media, there’s a high chance you’ve been confused by climate change activists and the denialists and – most of all, perhaps, by statistics. The writer Mark Twain once said “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Either side of the climate debate, experts are shooting at the media, claiming misrepresentation. Both sides agree that misrepresentation can only lead to confusion and poor policy. But what constitutes fair and accurate representation? You tell me!