This post is my final for the Geogg3057 course, although I'm sure I'll be back for more. However, I thought it provided a good opportunity to reflect on what I've learnt from this project so far.
I started the blog largely out of frustration at the poor quality of science reporting in the media, and because I was tired of hearing people spouting unchallenged climate change myths. As the project's gone on I've realised that communicating science is more challenging than I expected. Reassuringly, I've found that many other people have experienced this too, and many have tried to find novel ways to combat it. Others however have tried to exploit this, whether that's simply by trying to get away with lazy reporting or by actively trying to obscure the truth for personal gain.
There's no silver bullet to deal with all this. With media that focuses on bad news and social media that allows us to live in bubbles of like-minded people, in many ways it seems there is little to do. However, I would argue that this makes it more important than ever to find novel ways to communicate climate science.
In some ways social media makes this easier than before, as traditional media can be bypassed. I thought the post about sea ice, in which I used graphs from twitter, was an excellent example of this. Graphics are an excellent way to communicate a lot of information in a simple way, and mediums such as twitter allow a large audience to see them without necessarily having to search for them.
However, as has been widely discussed recently, social media promotes an echo-chamber effect. Even more worryingly, it allows the proliferation of fake news. How this can be combated is a more challenging problem, one for which I'm still not sure I have any good answers.
Overall, I think the main takeaways from this blog should be:
1) Just because something is published in a major newspaper or website, it isn't necessarily true. It's worth learning which outlets tend to report science most accurately, and knowing a good place to fact check (I'd recommend skeptical science for all climate-related queries).
2) Look beyond the headline; more often than not it's clickbait.
3) The importance of effective science communication cannot be overstated, and is certainly an area that would benefit from improvement.
4) Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the world today, but the worst thing we can do is give up the fight before its even begun. We need to arm ourselves with the facts and build a solution from there.
Finally, I hope you've enjoyed reading the blog so far as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Keep the comments coming, it's always great to hear feedback. Thanks for all your interest so far!
Climate Mythbuster
What does science have to say about the media's climate claims?
Sunday 8 January 2017
Thursday 5 January 2017
Pause for thought
Possibly inspired by this blog (it’s always good to dream
big), it seems that some of the world’s most preeminent climate scientists have
been doing some fact checking of their own. This week, a paper was released in Science Advances adding support to the argument that there has not actually
been a ‘hiatus’ in warming at all.
You may have seen this reported in the news.
It has received quite a lot of attention as it refutes one of the most popular
arguments of climate change ‘sceptics’ (see my first mythbusting post).
The paper corroborates an earlier study by the NOAA
that the apparent slow down in warming is in fact an artefact of the way measurements are
made. Changes in the way sea surface temperature measurements are taken, for
example a move towards using buoys rather than ships, have resulted in measurement
biases. This distorted the true trend in temperature changes.
Figure 1: From the BBC website,
showing the NOAAs new dataset (red), which corrected the biases from older, less
accurate instruments (blue).
This week’s paper presented a climate dataset which fully corrected
for the different methods of collecting temperature observations. Both this and
the NOAA data found rates of warming over the past decade to be comparable to
earlier rates, in contrast to previous reports of a ‘hiatus’ which even made it
into the 5th IPCC report.
This paper highlights the importance of critically
evaluating science. However, it also reinforces the message from the extreme
weather report is discussed in my earlier blog about the difficulty of communicating science. People with more experience science understand the concepts of instrumental bias, error, and
uncertainty. However, to most people these words suggest something entirely
different.
In some ways it is understandable why so many people are suspicious
of claims about climate change when climate scientists themselves can’t seem to
decide what’s going on. The scientific community as a whole needs to work on
making science communication more accessible. In climate science especially this
is of the upmost importance. I think a good start would to spend more time focussing
on what we know, and less on what we don’t.
Friday 30 December 2016
2016
With 2016 drawing to a close the media has been full of reflections on what a year it's been. A notable omission from many of these articles has been how this year has seen climate change progress at a record breaking rate. However, I did come across this article which has a few of the biggest changes and milestones we saw this year. It's well referenced too, so a useful tool if anyone tries to tell you things aren't all that bad/ climate change isn't happening. Check it out here!
Sunday 18 December 2016
Extreme weather
Climate change often receives the most attention in the
media when extreme weather is in the news. It seems that every hurricane,
flood, or heat wave sparks a new round of headlines. The public seem to respond to this effect; a
2014 study found that following personal experience of Hurricanes Sandy and Irene,
students in the north-east of the US showed increased concern about climate
change. Previous negative attitudes towards ‘green’ politicians were even
reversed.
However, it’s less certain that these links are scientifically
accurate. Is climate change actually causing the rate of extreme weather events
to increase?
Over the last few years a number of papers have been
published in which the links between specific extreme weather events and
climate change have been investigated. However, not much has changed in the way
these events are reported in the news. This week a report was published discussing the both the science of extreme weather events and, perhaps even
more interestingly, how this is communicated.
Contrary to my impression, the report found that even when
links were well established, extreme weather events were often discussed without
any mention of climate change- particularly in the US. However, it did note
that climate change reporting is dominated by extreme weather events. This is
doubly concerning, highlighting how under-reported climate change impacts are.
The report also found that prominent public figures played a large role in
influencing public opinion, even if they were unqualified to comment
In light of this, the report makes some recommendations about
how to best communicate scientific understanding of climate change. The main
points are that the reporting should focus on what we do know, rather than what
we don’t, and that pessimism and despair should be avoided as they tend to
prompt inaction. This advice may seem
common sense, but in reality is rarely followed for a number of reasons. For
example, talk of ‘uncertainty’ and ‘error’ is common in science, but these
words have subtly different meanings in everyday usage that tend to confuse the
public.
This advice could be applied to many areas of science, but
is particularly useful for climate change where public understanding and
concern lags far behind the science. Let’s hope that these recommendations are
widely read and followed, and that it’s enough to counteract the new wave of ‘sceptics’
coming into power in 2017.
Wednesday 7 December 2016
Greenwashing
Rather than look at an article this week, I thought I would be
interesting to talk about adverts. This was prompted by the Shell #makethefuture
campaign currently running. Its main adverts feature a number of celebrities and
cute cartoons of multiple renewable energy projects Shell are currently involved
in.
When I first saw the adverts, I was pretty impressed. Burning
fossil fuels is the single biggest contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions
causing climate change. We need investment in renewable energies to allow us to transition away from
fossil fuels without corresponding reductions in quality of life. Furthermore,
many of the projects featured can be used in areas without an extensive or
reliable energy infrastructure, and so potentially could play a huge role in
aiding access to electricity in these areas.
However, a little research has made me somewhat more sceptical
about these adverts. They’re not advertising a specific product or service, but
are instead a PR exercise aiming to improve the brand’s image in the public eye.
In fact, it’s a classic example of what has come to be called ‘greenwashing’: a
PR technique used to paint a company as environmentally friendly despite its
activities being anything but.
So what led me to these conclusions? A quick look at some
figures is pretty revealing. In 2016 Shell created a ‘New Energies’ division to
invest in renewables. Great! Except that this branch of the business receives investments
less than 1% the size of Shell’s investments in extracting fossil fuels.
That’s an annual expenditure of £200milllion vs the £30 billion spent on oil
and gas extraction.
Shell doesn’t have a good record on this front. In 2009 it
was reported that despite running adverts mere months before promoting its
green credentials, Shell had withdrawn funding for most renewables due to their
lack of profitability. In 2008 Shell was reprimanded by the UK Advertising Standards Authority for a ‘misleading’ advert in which it appeared
to label its exploitation of the Alberta Tar Sands and the development of the largest
oil refinery in the USA as ‘sustainable’.
Figure 1: Shell's 2008 advert deemed 'misleading' by the UKASA.
It’s worth pointing out of course that Shell is FAR from
the only offender in this area. See also BP (formally British Petroleum)
rebranding itself ‘Beyond Petroleum’ and ExxonMobil running adverts about how green it is while funding climate change denial on a grand scale.
The fact is, these companies’ profits and viability depend
on extracting and burning fossil fuels. That’s how they’ve always made their
money, and that’s how they hope to continue to make their money. Why not? They know
how to do it and there are incomprehensible profits to be made.
The problem for us is that world cannot go on burning fossil
fuels at this rate if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change. In fact, a 2015 paper in Nature
estimated that in order to give us a chance of avoiding 2˚C
warming, 80% of known coal reserves, 50% of known gas reserves and a third of
known oil reserves cannot be burned. Carbon Tracker’s 2011 Unburnable Carbon Report
introduced the idea of a ‘carbon bubble’: the fact that if any meaningful
action is taken to avoid climate change, the assets on which these companies
base their business models and financial reporting will become stranded. To put
it another way, these companies can talk about renewables all they want, but as
it stands their viability is reliant on us burning enough fossil fuels to cause
climate change far far exceeding 2 ˚C.
So what can be done? Shareholder pressure is having some success, for example leading to ExxonMobil agreeing to stop funding climate change denial (not that they stuck to it).
Many fossil fuel divestment campaigns
are also gaining traction
, following the success of boycott movements in the past (if you’re interested,
UCL has its own campaign).
I personally think that ultimately these companies are too
large and too powerful to have to respond to anything but globally coordinated regulation
by governments. And that’s unlikely to happen (in democracies at least) until
the public demand it. And as long as the fossil fuel giants are keeping us
happy with pretty films about how they’re going to change the world, we don’t
seem that interested in demanding that our governments take bold action to keep
fossil fuels in the ground. It may seem petty, but greenwashing is an
incredibly powerful weapon in the arsenal of these companies. Don’t fall for
it.
Wednesday 30 November 2016
Visualising Global Change
Something a bit different this time, but an interesting
perspective on how mass media can change our worldview nonetheless. This week
Google Earth updated
their Timelapse feature, and it’s really worth checking out (or have a look at the whole collection on
youtube here).
Not only are the compilations beautiful, they are also an excellent way to
visualise the effects we’re having on the planet.
I found the retreat of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska;
the cycles of desiccation of Lake PoopĆ³ in Bolivia;
and rising sea levels in Subarnachar Upazila, Bangladesh
three particularly eye-opening and relevant examples. If you’re not convinced
by the scale of the problem we’re facing, these might help change your mind.
Have a look and let me know what you think.
Friday 25 November 2016
Arctic Sea Ice
Arctic sea ice isn’t often out the news these days. Whether
it’s used by climate scientists as a warning of things to come
or by ‘sceptics’ as proof that things aren’t as bad as claimed,
it seems the world is very interested on what’s going on up there.
It can be hard to know what to make of all this. One way to
visual what’s going on is with Andy Lee Robinson’s 'Arctic Death Spiral'. (Note: many of the graphics this week are from tweets, to ensure their creators are properly credited. This doesn't mean they are poor science though; you can see the source of the data in each of the images. Have a look at those links if you want to find out more!)
#Arctic Death Spiral - October 2016 average vol: 5,539 km³ - 2nd record lowest (last year 7,052 km³, 2012: 5,036 km³) pic.twitter.com/zXmqkYy8dV— Andy Lee Robinson (@ahaveland) November 14, 2016
Figure 1: The average area covered by sea ice in
the Arctic each month since 1979 until October this year.
Each month has its own spiral because the
amount of ice in the arctic changes dramatically over the year. As you can see
from this graphic, the ice generally peaks around April and is lowest in
September, and has dramatically decreased over the last few decades. After September, temperatures drop again and ice begins to
form again. Worryingly however, this November has been anomalously warm; up to 20˚C warmer than average for this time of year.
This has resulted in a record breaking lack of ice.
Okay, maybe time to let the #Arctic know what season it is -> another drop in #seaice extent from the last 24-hours (3rd day in a row, JAXA) pic.twitter.com/2Fl1pQUsD4— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 20, 2016
Figure 2: Arctic sea ice extent this month is lower than ever observed at this time of year.
In fact, as of Wednesday, over half the days this year have
broken the record for the lowest extent of sea ice for that time of year.
Figure 3: This year's Arctic sea ice cover anomaly relative to the previous record minimum for that date.2016 has now broken daily record min Arctic #seaice extent on exactly 50% of days so far this year. Crazy year in the Arctic! pic.twitter.com/crW9rdc3pV— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 23, 2016
So what about all those articles asserting that the situation isn’t all that bad? Many are based around overly pessimistic predictions made during the record minimum of 2012 (see figure 4). The absolute minimum has not been this low since, with this year’s September minimum the same as that seen in 2009 (making it the joint second lowest coverage on record). However, although the terrifying event of 2012 is yet to be repeated, as figure 1 shows there is still a very significant decreasing trend. This trend is still outside the worst case scenarios predicted by early models (shown in figure 4). All in all, not all that reassuring, despite what the Daily Mail wants you to think.
Figure 4: Image from Skeptical Science during the record 2012 minimum compared to model projections.
The recent Arctic Resilience Report
doesn’t provide much comfort either. It highlights the vulnerability of the
Arctic to climate change, and lists 19 tipping points we are approaching there. This
video from The Guardian summarises some of the most important (and terrifying)
points from the report.
In summary, despite what can be taken away from cherry-picking
data or very short term variability, we are seeing a significant and rapid loss
of Arctic sea ice. This has the potential to have dramatic knock on
consequences on the rest of the world. And if you’re still not convinced of the
seriousness of this issue, just remember: no Arctic sea ice= no polar bears.
Time to act.
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