11 June 2010
Two interesting studies have recently been released showing US and UK public perceptions of climate change after the recent “climategate” email leaks from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and controversies over mistakes in the 4th IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report.
In the US, the Woods Institute for the Environment have carried out their 5th annual survey. 74% of respondents in a 100o person telephone survey responded yes to the question “Has the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years?”. The figure is down slightly from last year, when it was 75%, and has declined each year from the first survey in 2006 when it stood at 85%. The analysis showed that the recent fall was due to those who are sceptical of climate change scientists reacting to cold weather in the last two years.
Note how this figure of 74% compares with the 63% figure found by Gallup for US citizens who are aware of climate change and believe it to be due to manmade changes (see our previous blog post). It seems to suggest a large majority of Americans who think the earth is warming believe that it is humans who are causing it, with the majority of sceptics not believing in global warming at all.
The Woods Institute survey, led by Josh Krosnick, also showed that despite the recent controversies, trust in climate scientists had actually risen slightly over the last year.
The newly published Ipsos Mori poll carried out with Cardiff University paints a similar picture of belief in the UK. In 2005, 91% of those surveyed thought that climate change was happening and this has now reduced to 78%. With 58% replying that they had noticed changes for themselves, it shows the power of personal experience and that we are reaching a stage where a majority have some relevant experience to back up any studies by experts. However, 40% of respondents thought that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.
Overall, the studies show a smaller fall in belief in climate change than might be expected after the recent high profile controversies over the accuracy and independence of published results and also after recent cold weather that has caused headlines to change from “global warming” to “climate change”.
8 June 2010
The YouTube video which is embedded below is a presentation by Dr Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University of the results of the lastest Gallup survey of attitudes of people throughout the world to climate change. The survey has been carried out annually since 2006 and has a huge scope with nearly half a million people having been polled up to now. Although Dr Leiserowitz obviously believes in manmade climate change and the need to act to combat it, the figures provide interesting reading whatever your views.
The headline states that 40% of the world have not heard of climate change, but in fact the 40% figure includes those who answered “Do Not Know” and those who refused to answer the question, as well as those who actually said they had not heard of climate change. It also, as Dr Leiserowitz carefully points out, does not mean that 40% have not experienced changes in climate themselves. However, this headline figure is a good indication of how many people, usually the most disadvantaged by poverty and lack of education, are not aware of the debate and so have very little voice in deciding how the issue should be tackled.
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/B3R6VE4EvnU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0
The analysis by country is fascinating and makes the video well worth watching. The results of the first question, on awareness, are not that surprising, with the developed world most aware of the debate and Africa & South Asia the areas least aware. Some countries have over 70% of their population unaware and because of their large populations India & China have by far the largest number of inhabitants who are unaware. The example of Bangladesh is used to analyse the huge gap in awareness between those who are highly educated (98% aware) and those who are mainly or totally uneducated (under 30%).
But the question of belief in the causes of climate change presents a different geographical picture, with the USA joining India and a number of African countries as those with the highest belief that climate change is due to natural causes. Also, it is the countries of South America, particularly Brazil, who feel the risk to them from climate change is the highest.
Finally, despite the differing views, it is interesting to note that in nearly all the countries which are major carbon emitters, there is a majority of those who are aware who state that their governments should be doing more.
For more details of this report and similar work, visit the Yale Project Climate Change Communication website
4 June 2010
Because the AIBs (international media excellence awards) this year include a People’s Choice category for the best TV coverage of climate change, I have been looking at the online coverage on this subject and the wide range of different views expressed. It is a fascinating subject because of the way it affects, or may affect, different nations and peoples around the world (listen, for example to an interview with a campaigner from Samoa talking about climate justice) and also because of the widely differing views on the subject from fervent climate change disbelievers (e.g. Watts Up with That) to those who have made careers out of propounding manmade climate change (e.g. Al Gore)
But it is interesting to see other angles taken on climate change – from Ecological Buddhism’s view of the morality of mankind treating nature as a resource to be cared for, through those who care passionately about the effect on people living at the margins (see Oxfam’s website, for example) to those who focus on green technologies as business opportunities as well as necessary for our future (e.g. Clean Technology Business Review).
If you do not have a set viewpoint, it is difficult to make sense of all the conflicting claims and studies. Thank goodness for sites like “Information is beautiful”, in particular the blog post putting arguments from opposing views on climate change side by side with the data graphed inbetween. It is a really useful infographics tool to allow readers to make informed decisions themselves.
It can be difficult to make up your mind on the arguments, but once you have, you can be sure of finding a group who is championing the point of view on which you decide.
21 May 2010
The AIBs’ new People’s Choice category, focused this year on programmes dealing with climate change, is limited to television programmes. This is because, unfortunately, it is difficult to ask an international audience to judge radio programmes because of language barriers. At least with television we can (and will) provide subtitles in a range of languages for the programs to be chosen by popular vote, and the online viewers can see the original output and understand the way that the story is treated. With radio, in order to convey the quality of a programme, a translation has to be very precise and convey the original intonation and expression. We hope that AIB members and other colleagues working in radio will forgive us that we were not able to include radio this year.
This is a pity since there are many good examples of radio programmes dealing with climate change. Only this week it was possible to hear:
- Vatican Radio reporting on Pope Benedict XVI expressing serious concern for the plight of herders in Mongolia, where extreme weather conditions threaten the livelihood of hundreds of thousands. The Pope stated that “environmental issues, particularly those related to climate change, are global issues and need to be addressed on a global level”
- Vermont Public Radio (VPR) on the effects of climate change at Lake Champlain, which now often fails to freeze over in winter. This visible result brings home the reality of the changes to local people. While it causes problems, Curt Stager of Paul Smith’s College in the northern Adirondacks points out “It’s a mix of good news and bad news in a way. The bad news is that climate change is likely to amplify some of our existing environmental problems. And the good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to deal with that.”
- MetadelPlaneta, the first radio programme in Mexico about climate change, appealing for funds
- an online podcast about Project Survival Pacific, discussing the danger to low-lying islands in the Pacific of rising sea levels and how the islanders are reacting
However, there were claims that the 4th International Conference on Climate Change hosted by the Heartland Institute was not given coverage by the media. But you can catch up here to see video and audio of the conference as it is posted.
The programmes mentioned above show how radio broadcasts can bring to life personal stories of how climate affects individuals all over the world. But the continuing wide divergence of views about what change is happening, what causes it, how damaging it is and what we should do, still challenges the listeners ability to put facts into perspective and broadcasters ability to shed light.
15 May 2010
The Hartwell paper was published this week by a group of 14 academics from USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Finland and Japan. It proposes that the failure of the UN Copenhagen summit (COP15) to enforce meaningful targets and the lack of noticeable progress from the global agreements and targets on reducing carbon emissions actually provide an opportunity to address concerns on climate change in different ways.
The authors argue for the expansion of measures that are popular and pragmatic, offering energy security and also aiding human dignity by providing the poorest with safe, available energy. They point out that a majority of human activity that forces climate change is not due to carbon emissions but other causes, such as the loss of tropical forests, black carbon and the emission of other greenhouse gases. These causes can be addressed in ways that do not generate the controversy of capping carbon emissions.
The proposed approach suggests incentives for investing in alternative energy sources, which speaks to the desires of many nations to increase their energy security, and for helping underdeveloped countries to use more effective energy – for example by providing more efficient stoves for the poorest to dramatically reduce the 1.5 million annual premature deaths due to soot which is addition would cut the effect of “black carbon” on warming and on the melting of glaciers. The BBC’s “Costing the Earth” programme this week looks at this in some detail and examines the practicalities of such approaches.
The report switches the focus from CO2 emission targets and this has been criticised by other leading figures in the field such as Bill Hare, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, as reported in Nature’s Climate Feedback blog.
In discussing how to put their proposals into practice, the authors suggest funding via an hypothecated carbon tax, which they claim will be low. But it is not clear how low this would be and any tax would seem to counter their argument that their approach would be more popular than the current emission caps and carbon trading.
Whether practical or not, the paper opens up other strategies for changing the damaging by-products of humanity’s energy usage. The question is whether these are useful additions or alternatives to current approaches or whether they would mainly damage the efforts to focus on carbon reduction. The proposals are likely to prove additional distractions to such efforts as the American Power Act, as noted in Discovery’s article on this bill by US Senators Kerry and Liebermann
