Many years ago while waiting for the school bus, I commented to an elementary school classmate that finally the big night had arrived. For what? she asked. For what? Well, the World Series, of course, where my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers were playing the hated New York Yankees. (The Dodgers won, by the way.) I thought everyone knew about – and cared about – the World Series. It was an eye-opening experience for my 8-year-old self that not everyone cared about the same things I did.
We’re facing a similar scenario in this country regarding the United National Climate Change Conference, which began Dec. 7 in Copenhagen. Those of us who have been active in the “environmental movement” (or “life-survival activities”) have been anxiously awaiting the summit, hopeful that world leaders will take strong action to combat climate change. Certainly “everyone” knows the purpose of the U.N. summit, right?
However, a November 2009 Harris Poll of U.S. Americans showed that about 70% of the respondents were not even aware of the topic of the conference. How could that be? In a January 2009 survey the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that of 20 possible “top priority” public policy issues, U.S. respondents rated the environment in 16th place and global warming in the 20th or last place. The top three issues were the economy, jobs and terrorism.
In at speech given at the Florida State University School of Law on Dec. 1, Frank Loy, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 1998 to 2001, said that “In the United States, in contrast to every other country, our appreciation of the urgency [of addressing climate change] is at a totally different level.”
To make matters worse, the same November 2009 Harris Poll found a drop of 20% – from 71% to 51% – in just the last two years in the number of U.S. Americans who believe global warming is caused primarily by humans. The researchers’ interpretation was that more U.S. Americans seem confused as to whether humans are responsible for the dramatic rise in carbon dioxide, which is identified as the cause of global warming.
It’s not surprising that many U.S. Americans are confused about the realities of climate change. And the mainstream media certainly haven’t helped. The journalistic guideline has been to assume there are two “equal” sides to an issue – ignoring the fact that one “side” may be significantly more valid than the other. So, the rule dictates, if you quote someone “in favor of” climate change, then you must quote someone “opposed to” climate change ... as if “the facts” about climate change were something you could be in favor of or oppose.
Many of us want to believe scientists have the key to solving our problems, and yet we’re often confused by what we’re told (think about recent recommendations regarding whether women of a certain age need to have regular mammograms). And then there’s the story out of the University of East Anglia (dubbed “Climate-gate” by conservative commentators and repeated on all media outlets). In case you missed the story, thousands of stolen e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at the UEA were posted on the Internet. The e-mails contain references to “tricks” and other activities that global warming deniers have said prove climate change isn’t real. Bad form, CRU. As FoxNews.com frames the issue, “There is no precedent for so many academics engaging in coordinated efforts to distort research for political ends.”
Scientists need to make the peer-review process more transparent and help us nonscientists understand why they are so convinced climate change is real. The media can help as well, and some networks are trying. On last night’s evening news, NBC carried a major story in its feature titled “A Perfect Storm” about how much of Bangladesh is under water as a result of rising tides caused by global warming. CBS carried a similar story about the Maldives Islands, where officials are making plans to desert the likely-to-be-submerged islands and move everyone to another country on higher ground.
Fox News, on the other hand, has been focusing on why it believes the mainstream media have ignored the CRU story (head’s up: they haven’t), analyzing the carbon footprint of the U.N. summit (which it has dubbed “Carbonhagen”), predicting the formation of a “new world economy” to address climate change (translated as “Watch out, U.S., we’re being taken over by other countries!”), and that the rise in sea level is “the greatest lie ever told."
Even CNN’s Campbell Brown is hosting a show tonight titled “Global Warming: Trick or Truth?” We’re told to “Tune in to Campbell Brown tonight for a look into the science, skepticism, and secrets surrounding global climate change.”
It’s a clever title, but it frames the issue of climate change as factually questionable. No wonder people are confused!
But even if you can’t understand all of the science of climate change, just think of melting glaciers, rising sea levels, increased intensity of droughts and forest fires, increased health problems – especially in low-income communities – as a result of poor air quality and other forms of pollution, and so on. The EPA just released a statement publicly linking greenhouse gases to public health, which many people have been saying for years.
Something IS happening to our planet. So what is causing the disconnect between what we “see” and what we “feel”? Why is it that “if the facts don’t fit the frame, it’s the facts that are rejected, not the frame”?
A story published Dec. 7 on NPR.org quotes psychologist Kari Marie Norgaard of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., as saying that the reason we don’t or can’t accept the critical nature of climate change is that “… as people start to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, they simply turn away from the topic. It's a form of denial, she says. ‘We just don't want to know about it, so we are actively distancing ourselves from it or trying to protect ourselves from it.’”
At the FSU conference I mentioned earlier, one participant – and international student working on her doctoral dissertation – said she’s studying why U.S. Americans can’t seem to grasp the seriousness of climate change. Her conclusion: We haven’t figured out yet that climate change is and will affect us … and not just people in other parts of the world.
I suspect the reason also has something to do with our history as a relatively new nation, our Manifest Destiny, so to speak, of being “right” and “privileged” to do whatever it is that we do … because, of course, we’re right. And change is scary.
So hang onto your hats. The ride is sure to be exciting. Let’s just hope it ends as safely as possible for humankind.
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