Source: The Daily Beacon
National Public Radio journalist Richard Harris discussed how climate change has evolved in both the scientific community and the media Tuesday.
Harris has reported on science topics for NPR the last 24 years, covering stories from the South Pole to the Amazon rainforest.
Harris described the initial reaction to climate change within the scientific community.
“In the beginning, their attitude was: ‘Wow, this is really scary. Wow, this is really going to happen. This is 50 years from now.’ And end of story because they couldn’t believe that they really could grasp it or deal with it in any serious way,” Harris said.
In the late 1980s, the United Nations funded an international research team to conduct a report on climate change. The report said there was some evidence that human influence had led to increased global temperatures.
Over the past 30 years, confidence in climate change has increased among climate change researchers. A UN report from earlier this year declared there to be unequivocal climate change since the mid-20th century due to human involvement, Harris said.
Harris believes public opinion of climate change has taken a different course. Up until 2006, public interest had risen with steadying scientific assurance. At that time, 77 percent of Americans believed in solid evidence of global warming.
A Gallup Organization poll this year showed that 49 percent of Americans are unconcerned about global warming, and 20 percent say there is no evidence of it.
“This is especially hard for me, as somebody who had spent so many years trying to report about the facts, tell people what’s going on and then to see public opinion go in the opposite direction,” Harris said.
Harris explained how it can be hard to get a clear story on climate change with so many media sources, including the recent arrival of the blogosphere.
“It’s not about the science; it’s about the messenger,” Harris said.
Another deterrent for the public acceptance of climate change is the matter of responsibility. Efforts to curb the sources of climate change can be seen by some as an assault on the American way of life.
Harris concluded his presentation on the global economy’s effect on climate change.
“We’ve been using the atmosphere as a sewer for our carbon dioxide,” he said. “This isn’t going to change until we can make clean energy cheaper than dirty energy.”
Mark Littmann, professor of journalism and electronic media, remarked on the value of trustworthy information in reports for the public regarding the science of climate change.
“I hope not only that people understand what Richard Harris has said but that they see how hard he is working to figure out how to bring the people information about climate change that they can trust,” Littmann said.