The Media's Lies About Climate Change

In 2007, the Nobel Prize winning UN Intergovernmental  Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international scientific body that reviews and assesses studies related to climate change, released a report that stated, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” Despite this scientific consensus, the media’s coverage of climate change continues to focus on the “debate” between climate change deniers and mainstream scientists instead of transitioning to the crucial discussion about what to do about climate change. As a result of the media’s skewed coverage, policymakers have to persuade people of the existence and adverse effects of climate change instead of being able to craft practical, necessary solutions to the problem.

The media’s focus on controversy and debate surrounding the issue of climate change is obscuring the scientific consensus. For example, this fall thousands of emails from a prominent British climate research center were hacked. Skeptics of climate change alleged that these emails showed that scientists had exaggerated the affects of climate change by manipulating data and withholding information from being published. The media, including respected sources such as the New York Times, called this controversy “Climategate” and reported on it in great detail. A government panel recently investigated these allegations and found that the scientists did not distort their data but should have been more transparent about publishing their results. It also found no details in the emails that challenged the scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.” This story was reported on in the weeks leading up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.  Reports of the controversy may have distracted lawmakers from crafting a strong, binding international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions and represent one reason why no such treaty emerged.

Although there is scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change, many broadcast meteorologists are climate change deniers. An Emory University study found that 29% of TV meteorologists believed that global warming was “a scam.” There are several reasons for this trend. First, broadcast meteorologists are not climate scientists, and their training is to predict short-term weather patterns, not to analyze long-term climate trends. It can be difficult for them to acknowledge that scientists can predict weather patterns years down the road. However, this position fails to acknowledge the distinction between weather and climate. While meteorologists predict the temperature and precipitation events that will occur at a specific point in time, climate scientists predict the overall trends and patterns that will occur as a result of increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Therefore, the long-term trends that indicate climate change are outside of a meteorologist’s area of expertise. Meteorologists have no more authority to evaluate the legitimacy of climate change science than a dentist has to evaluate the severity of a worldwide flu pandemic. The fact that so many meteorologists do not accept climate change science is alarming because 56% of Americans trust weathercasters more than they trust other news media or public figures to tell them about global warming, according to a Yale and George Mason study.

A study by University of Colorado professor Maxwell Boykoff found that the majority of informed scientists believe that the effects of climate change will have a “substantial cost” or a be a “catastrophe.” However, the media covers the climate change “debate” between a small number of right-wing think tanks that believe that climate change will have a “neutral” effect and the much larger number of scientists who believe it will have a “substantial cost.” The IPCC lies at the lower end of this “substantial cost” threshold; any prediction that climate change will have more severe costs than IPCC prediction is considered unreasonable and is not reported on in the popular media, even though far more scientists hold this “extreme” view than the view that climate change will have a neutral impact.

This skewed representation of climate change by the media has major implications for policymakers. Since the popular press does not adequately explain the severity of climate change and the scientific consensus that humans are causing it, many people believe that we do not need to take action to stop climate change. Therefore, constituents do not press their representatives to pass legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and the issue of climate change takes a backseat to the economy, healthcare, and numerous other issues. When climate change does get discussed, policymakers are less likely to support the ambitious proposals that we need to cap greenhouse gas emissions and promote renewable energy, because these are seen as extreme “liberal” solutions in contrast to the conservative approach of doing nothing and denying that humans are causing climate change – an approach that most scientists would object to but that the media has made legitimate.

Climate change is a complex issue that is difficult to fully explain in the short sound bites and newscasts that characterize the modern mainstream media. However, journalists should take responsibility to cover the issue with as much scientific integrity as possible and not succumb to the sensationalized “debate” between scientists and climate change deniers. Most Americans learn about climate change from the mainstream media, and therefore the media has a responsibility to present the issue accurately.