When #Copernicus published its update "April 2024 was warmer globally than any previous April in the data record" I heard it in a casual radio message, followed by an update on football.
Even though I have to deal with #ClimateChange professionally, the realization that we are in an uncharted climate territory does not make it any less mind-boggling. Casually mentioning this unfolding threat to our civilization in between the really relevant news and sports borders with denialism. #DontLookUp
Something that never gets discussed openly is the carbon emissions created by war/conflict.
I don't just mean by the vehicles etc. But the carbon cost of rebuilding once the conflict is over.
Even during the conflict, if a building is effectively demolished, the carbon footprint of that building goes up, because it no longer has a productive purpose.
I also don't understand why climate scientists don't make a bigger issue of it.
@Havant_Enviro
It might be very convenient to gaslight on climate scientists for not yet solving the #climatecrisis. Do you think that the military sector sends us a regular update on their carbon footprint? In fact, it is even voluntary to report military emissions.
Climate scientists do warn on the immense climate footprint of military activities, at the #COP28 and elsewhere. You might want to inform yourself before making the claim.
@TatianaIlyina It is going to take crop failures (hopefully not a large one) to get the powers that be to respond.
If you look at Dr John Snow and the history of sanitation in London, it wasn't "good science led to sanitation" like is normally presented. He published in 1854, and the "miasma" theory was still going strong. Board of Health reviewed the study and declared "miasma" the cause. It was "The Big Stink" of 1858, where everyone was miserable and the city stank like an open sewer for a week fearing miasma, to get funding for sewers and another 17 year to actually build them. It was never the actual, real science. At one point the handle got put back on that pump and people started dying again. .
We lucked into sanitation, we didn't science into it.
No one was earning money off cholera like oil earns money off carbon. We have a much harder lift this time.
That is why I think it will take crop failures. It is the fear that causes action, not the science.
@TatianaIlyina In much of the coverage here in a chilly Scotland there’s a tendency to have more frequently a positive spin on “global warming” - hotter summers, milder winters. The phrase is not helpful. Or current climate and much of our current society will collapse. I wish we could settle on terminology that better captures the societal disruption. #climatecollapse
@TatianaIlyina 1/2 As a journalist who has also worked with communications for a long time, I am very happy when this news is also included in the mainstream at prime time.
This is the only way we can reach people who don't watch specialist documentaries or special programmes (which also have their purpose). Only when people understand the context of why they sweat more at football than they used to these news reach the general population. You can then build on that.
Incidentally, the
@TatianaIlyina 2/2 "casually" can often shock better than an alarm article. Even if catastrophes seem to sell better, it's an old lesson in journalism: if you show brutal things too often, use superlatives too often, intensify things too often, it dulls the reader. It is therefore important to keep changing the storytelling. People are currently overwhelmed by bad world news. It's not easy to stop them from switching off completely.
This has nothing to do with denialism. I like it!
@NatureMC
I am fully with you about mainstream way of reporting. What bothers me is that in a society in which trivial physical facts about climate change were made a topic of political debate with purposeful disinformation campaigns, the audience would be expectedly confused. How should non-experts on climate change interpret the casual news? There is lack of guidance on this. The most frequent question I get here is "I am concerned about climate change, what can I do?" 1/2
@NatureMC 2/2 What I would wish to hear along a mainstream reporting on temperature / climate extremes is also a casual update on climate action / inaction, update on the progress in expanding renewable energy and other solutions. Without this there is information vacuum.
@TatianaIlyina We are absolutely of the same opinion! And I'm a big fan of #solutionsJournalism, which is unfortunately completely underrepresented in Germany.
The problem is only: The pure news have to be reduced to some short facts with a hint: "this is a sign of climate crisis" (like the result of the football game or the number of dead in a shooting).
For deepening this we have different formats outside the news. And there it depends very much on the inhouse politics, unfortunately.
@NatureMC@TatianaIlyina I guess it depends on journalistic cultures and ethics...In France Léa Salamé at France Inter said that she is essentially only interested in the bits of news that trigger people, so...
@jaztrophysicist This is the biggest problem, indeed! It depends on the inhouse politics of your publisher.
In Germany e.g. Springer (owner of media) quite serves right-wing populism and climate deniers. The only thing you can do there is quit the job/not consume their media.
What would help to change the culture: If people would share good journalism examples more often, give other media more reach. Like (topic environment) @Reporterre@riffreporter@TheConversationClimate @TatianaIlyina
@TatianaIlyina I’m glad that more climate news is making it into mainstream media, unfortunately by not explaining anything about what it means it seems to just make it meaningless.
I worry that we become numb to the records broken.
I speak to others who are not so climate focused and it doesn’t seem to register with them how out of “range” we are.
Between that and people thinking there is a new normal - as if the climate is going to stop changing before we do- it’s hard to convey where we are