Posted on 03/13/2010 11:08:50 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Hadi Dowlatabadi is Canada research chair and professor in Applied Mathematics and Global Change at the University of British Columbia.
Richard Lindzen is a professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information see Professor Lindzen's bio.
Wodek Szemberg is a senior producer on The Agenda with Steve Paikin. He is also producer of Big Ideas and the Best Lecturer Competition. Follow Wodek on Twitter.
I will say it has much content and if one has not been following many of the threads and discussion here on FreeRepublic much of the value of this may not be apparent....welcome other comments as to educational impact of the 55 minute video.
Marking for later view.
Climate II: The Media, the Scientists and the Planet
Published Date: 03/11/2010
Length: 53:16
Couldn’t get past the first 15 minutes. Most of it was chicken little propaganda. “99 percent of all climate scientists...” Hogwash.
Bump.
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Global Climate Change, Global Experts
Posted on: 12 March 2010 by Meredith Martin
A funny thing happened on my way to producing a program for The Agenda’s four part series on climate change. None of the geoengineering experts I talked to were anywhere near Toronto where our studio is located. David Keith, who is Canadian, was in Washington for most of the week, Alan Robock, who teaches at Rutgers in New Brunswick, New Jersey, would be in Paris at the time of the broadcast and John Stone who lives and works in Ottawa was teaching on Friday and unable to make it Toronto for the taping. Why does this matter you ask? Well, speaking as a producer I feel the conversation is more dynamic and engaging when people speak face to face. Also, Steve gets lonely in the studio all by himself.
Be that as it may tonight’s discussion on geoengineering is an important one. It’s a huge topic and the term geoengineering - manipulation of Earth's climate - can mean many different things to many different people. Most of what you read in the papers is about headline grabbing projects that make for good stories like giant mirrors launched into space, but have not been seriously considered by any governments. Another misconception you may have read about is the idea that geoengineering could be the answer to global climate change. I learned that this is simply not the case. In order to prevent the earth’s temperature from rising too rapidly we must reduce emissions and we may eventually also use geoengineering to help that along, but it is only being considered as something to do in addition to reducing green house gases, not instead of it.
One person I looked at booking who has very serious concerns about geoengineering is Diana Bronson from the the Etc. Group, an environmental organization based in Montreal. They have published a report called Retooling the Planet: Climate Chaos in a Geoengineering Age. However, the entire staff of the Etc. Group is at an annual meeting in Mexico City right now.
Finally, some extra research you might be interested in examining:
A TED Talk featuring David Keith
A Policy Statement of the American Meterorological Society on Geoengineering the Climate System
What a waste of time.
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In the fourth installment of our four part series on climate change: Engineering against global warming.
Go to episode page »
Where climate science meets politics.
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In the second installment of our four part series on climate change: How well have journalists covered climate change?
Go to episode page »
Tonight in the first installment of our four part series on climate change: One debate, two scientists--separating the real heat from hot air.
Go to episode page »
Climate Change: Did I confuse you?
I mean I went to university and got good grades in my journalism program. And I impress when I play Trivial Pursuit. But I stopped taking science classes after Grade 10 and I just couldn't quite get my head around calculus in my last year of high school. My mother would never say this, but my brother, the computer programmer with the mathematics degree, is the really smart one.
So it's no surprise that I, like many other journalists who opted for arts and humanities over engineering and physics, find climate change one of the most challenging and complicated issues to cover.
It's not just that climate science uses a number of scientific disciplines to try and predict how our incredibly complex environment will react to rising CO2 levels. It's also that the issue of climate change touches on questions of science, questions about how that science is done, as well as questions about policies to deal with climate change and the political conflict around them.
One academic has argued that, too often, journalists are mixing science, policy and politics together when discussing climate change, leading to an informational mess that is as likely to confuse as it is to illuminate.
Max Boykoff, environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is one of the authors of the 2004 article "Balance as Bias". It helped popularize the idea that the journalistic practice of seeking balance by giving climate skeptics "equal time" in articles and interviews gave the public the false impression that scientists were split 50-50 on the issue when the vast majority of climate scientists agreed that climate change caused by humans was a reality.
While the issue of "balance as bias" is less prevalent now in journalism than it was in 2004, Boykoff argues in a 2008 article in Nature Reports that today we have a different problem: the mixing of different scientific and political issues in today's climate change reporting is leading some in the public to draw false conclusions from climate change:
In the US Republican debate in Iowa on 12 December 2007, Carolyn Washburn of the daily broadsheet The Des Moines Register asked the question, "How many of you believe global climate change is a serious threat and caused by human activity?" ...
Whereas the latter aspect is one of clear scientific consensus, the former is a judgment call, worth legitimate debate and discussion. But by merging these issues into a single question, Washburn allowed candidates to skirt both issues with general responses: "I believe that global climate change is serious" (Rudy Giuliani), and "I think that climate change is real" (John McCain).
By conflating different issues, Boykoff continues, journalists obscure the difference between areas of climate change where agreement is strong (i.e. the basic science) and areas where disagreement calls for more debate and discussion (i.e. whether we need a carbon tax).
Does the program I produced for tonight fall into that trap? I think at times it might, even though I was aware of Boykoff's concerns. At times during the discussion, we talk about the way journalists cover the science itself and at the same time talk about how journalists deal with the politics in and around the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body charged with summarizing the scientific research on climate. At some points during the program, one of our guests, Walter Russell Mead, feels the need to make clear the distinction he's making between science, policy and politics to the other guests and the audience.
It is difficult, though, to completely avoid this trap. Questions about the IPCC's reputation lead to questions about the reliability of the science itself, even if they're not necessarily one and the same. And often scientists who have researched the climate have very strong views on the policies that should flow from their scientific conclusions.
I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on how well -- or poorly -- tonight's program deals with the issue of climate science journalism. And please feel free to post any thoughts you have in general about how journalists cover this often contentious topic.
ping
Thanks E. I will bookmark for viewing at a later date. Had to work till 8PM then obviously set the clocks forward then eat supper. I will shortly hit the sack for a early starter.
bttt
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