The public is being placed at a greater risk of harm from the impacts of climate change because of failures in communication by the media, as well as the government and the research community, writes Bob Ward. He supports his analysis based on evidence submitted to Parliament, and concludes that misleading and scientifically inaccurate arguments should not be routinely promoted in the media as ‘free speech’.
The evidence I submitted to an inquiry on science communication by the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology states: “The vast over-representation of viewpoints from individuals and organisations that reject the scientific consensus may largely explain why such a large proportion of the public do not realise the extent of scientific consensus and hence do not share the conclusions of the consensus”.
For instance, a survey of a representative sample of British adults carried out by ComRes for the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in September 2015 found that only 16 per cent agreed that “almost all”, with a further 45 per cent choosing “a majority of”, climate scientists “believe that climate change is mainly the results of human activities”. The survey also discovered that only 59 per cent agreed with the statement “Climate change is happening and is mainly caused by human activity”, while 28 per cent agreed that “Climate change is happening but human activity is not mainly responsible for it”.
And the 17th wave of the regular public attitudes tracking survey commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which was carried out in March 2016, found that only 43 per cent of a representative sample of the UK public agreed that climate change is entirely or mainly caused by human activity, with a further 41 per cent stating that climate change is partly caused by natural processes and partly caused by human activity.
My submission draws attention to the fact that the results of these opinion polls are in stark contrast to the extremely strong consensus among scientists that climate change is happening. This is driven primarily by human activities, and poses severe risks if unmanaged, as documented through the conclusions in 2014 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is also supported by numerous surveys of peer-reviewed papers – including Professor James Powell’s analysis earlier this year – the verdicts of national science academies of major scientific institutions around the world, including a joint publication by the UK’s Royal Society and the United States National Academy of Sciences.
My submission to the Committee draws attention to the fact that the majority of the UK’s national newspapers have adopted editorial lines on climate change that, to varying extents, promote the views of climate change ‘sceptics’. While the editorial line can often be detected in the choice and style of news stories about climate change, it is often more obvious in the commentaries that are published. Geoffrey Lean, the former environment correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, has drawn attention to the disproportionate number of columnists for UK newspapers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change.
This was clearly demonstrated last month after a group of peers, including Lord Stern, the Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, wrote a letter to the editor of The Times to highlight the damage he is causing to the newspaper’s reputation by promoting climate change denial. In response, Viscount Ridley, the hereditary peer and former Chair of Northern Rock bank accused the authors of the letter of trying to “shut down debate about the science of climate change”.
This defensive tactic adopted by Viscount Ridley and fellow campaigners at the Global Warming Policy Foundation, such as Charles Moore, not only misrepresents the concept of press freedom, but also tries to obscure how unscientific and intellectually feeble the arguments of climate change ‘sceptics’ really are. Yet newspapers are supposed to be bound by the Editors’ Code of Practice, which states: “The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text”.
However, this self-regulation is routinely disregarded by those who allow demonstrably false information to be disseminated to the public, apparently on the grounds that claims – not matter how demonstrably inaccurate and misleading – can be classified as ‘a point of view’. Moreover, the modern scientific method is based on exposing claims to the rigorous test of experimentation and observation, and those that fail are allowed to die. Climate change ‘sceptics’ have been shown over and over again to be wrong about the science, as well as the economics and politics, yet they demand that their zombie arguments should be allowed to live on for the sake of ‘free speech’.
It is time for the press, especially those that champion the views of climate change ‘sceptics’, to put the interests of their readers first.
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Bob Ward is Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at London School of Economics and Political Science.
Jim.
The laws of physics are not open to negotiation nor are the processes they effect, they pay no heed to wishes, wants, ideology or economics or beliefs.
May I humbly suggest step out of the echo chamber and find out what is actually happening in the real world.
I pointed out in comments at the start of your winter that Southern UK, Wales and Ireland were in for a battering by a conga line of storms. What was the Basis, that cold pool from Greenland Ice melt due to AGW and the backed up Gulf stream.
You are aware of the conflagration in the Arctic circle including Russia, forests burning that have not known fire for between 10 and 30 Thousand years are burning now and will burn this summer.
Recent research shows that the Arctic ocean has not been free of sea ice for over 3 Million years , a very real risk it will happen this year or within the next couple of years.
For every 1C rise the atmosphere can carry 7% more H2O, the Eastern US especially North Eastern is at great risk of extreme weather this summer as el Nino changes to La Nina.
The economic costs are going to be horrendous.
The Cold pool has not gone away, in fact very strong early melt in Greenland means it will be growing so expect more cold and wet through summer.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they must be prepared to be accountable for them,.
I forsee a time wher the public will be demanding retrospective waiver of Pty Ltd protection for companies that are deemed to be participants in ecocide and mass homicide by peddling false information and misinformation, even politicians and media organisations and editors and shareholders will be held to account.
Let them eat cake..
You may care to educate yourself , try robertscroibbler – an emerging threwats analyst who publishes fact and science fiction to pay the bills rather than accept dirty funding.
Or peter Sinclair who is a one man band also doing videos and interviewing scientists and involved in the Dark Ice project in Greenland at climatecrocks. They are just fro starters and the comments and links are most informative.
What do you know of what is happening in Canada or the Arctic, and why don’t you know the extent and the consequences and implications.
Bob is absolutely correct, except the scientists have been doing their best to pass on the knowledge and the urgency, we are fast running out of time.
From : The Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal Wed 17 Jul 1912
COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECT-
ING CLIMATE.
The furnaces of the world are now
burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of
coal a year. When this is burned,
uniting with oxygen, it adds about
7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide
to the atmosphere yearly. This tends
to make the air a more effective blan-
ket for the earth and to raise its
temperature. The effect may be con-
siderable in a few centuries.
The science has been built up in hundreds of different lines of evidence and there is no doubt of the realities, even field experiments over 10 years (2000-2010) during which CO2 rose 22ppm, the back radiation to earth from CO2 rose 0.2 Watts/Sq Meter – do the math, then the positive feedback of increased atmospheric H2O.
since then the rate of increase is increasing, the last 12 months was over 4ppm.
There will be no winners if that heat sets off the clathrates it will be a very ugly and brutal phase and we will all suffer with no exceptions and that includes those who have made plans,
CO2=Y2K²
35 yrs. of
climate action delay
was 100% proof
that CO2
was the new Y2K
Science gave us
germ warfare and
fracking for all to see
and 35 years of
99% and “could be
a CO2 end of days.”
Is this how we want our kids and all of history remembering us, as climate blame drama queens?
*Occupy no longer mentions CO2 in it’s list of demands so move on before we are all branded neocons in history.
A number of prominent political figures and commentators disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change. A small number of scientists also disagree with it to varying degrees. Are you saying that newspapers should not be allowed to publish their views if they choose to, under the Editors’ Code of Practice? That is, de facto, a major infringement of press freedom and free speech, regardless of whether you or I agree with the speech in question.
Also, you say that ‘climate change ‘sceptics’ have been shown over and over again to be wrong about the science, as well as the economics and politics’. Do you think that someone like Bjorn Lomborg, who accepts the science, but not the received economics and politics (and who is labelled a ‘denier’, ‘sceptic’ and worse), should be censored under the Code? I do not believe that when it comes to politics and economics the question is about ‘demonstrably false information’, but about competing perspectives. After all, in just about every political question, from Brexit to obesity, people argue that they are demonstrably right and their opponents are demonstrably wrong. That is the messy world of free speech, messy but infinitely preferable to anything else.