Due respect, it's appalling to today see @BBCNews Science Ed@davidshukmanbbc indulge climate chg denial & a false sense of debate...(1/4)
For years, the BBC has been criticised for the false balance of its climate change coverage. And for years, the BBC has apparently been doing “ongoing work” to fix it. So far, however, this ‘reform’ has been more like a triumph of the middling. Yes, the BBC may broadcast less outright misinformation, but as a scientist and a citizen, I still feel let down by its continually careless handling of climate denial - most recently two weeks ago. This nod to mediocrity is a disservice to science, to public trust, and to the biggest news story in the world. And it is a huge, missed opportunity.
As a young PhD graduate working on climate change solutions, I am confronted daily by a world where the warnings of science are undercut by Fox ‘News’ and its ilk. It is a very different world to the trustworthy BBC broadcasts of David Attenborough and the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures that I grew up with, which helped inspire me to become a scientist. But as a recent BBC News segment by Science Editor David Shukman sadly reminded me, those worlds can too easily collide.
Shukman’s broadcast was an interesting one. An important perspective on the “political battle over the future of fuel” in the swing state of Ohio, and its implications for U.S. energy policy. I transcribed it here. It was all pretty benign until, halfway through, something in Shukman’s narration caught my ear (emphasis mine):
The problem with coal comes when you burn it. It releases carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming. Donald Trump saysthat isn’t a problem. But Hillary Clinton says it is, and she’s offering a greener future instead ...
While the debate rages over whether climate change is a threat or not…
Shukman’s accompanying BBC blog post beats the same drum, outlining the candidates’ “starkly different visions of global warming”:
The Democratic Party contender says she believes in the science of climate change. By contrast, the Republican candidate talks down the threat of rising temperatures.
As harmless as they sound, words like “blamed”, “debate”, and “believe” - without careful context - are the currency of public confusion. “Who, exactly, blames carbon dioxide for global warming?” we are forced to wonder. Clinton? Liberals? Scientists? And who disagrees? Trump? Other politicians? Some scientists too? Most importantly, who’s right in this blame game?
For the record, carbon dioxide is not “blamed” for global warming - it “causes” it. That is the unequivocal scientific consensus the world over.
Confusion, in turn, fosters doubt. And in the strategic words of Big Oil and Big Tobacco, “Doubt is our product.” Doubt promotes apathy. It demotes the importance of climate change to the electorate. It means we demand less of our leaders, and less of ourselves. And it is all that those who oppose action on climate change need to win.
The psychology of climate communication is of course not black-and-white, but as one peer-reviewed study summarised:
In short, people who believe that scientists disagree on global warming tend to feel less certain that global warming is occurring, and show less support for climate policy.
The BBC should know better, because over and over, it has been indicted for mistakes like this. In fact, Shukman’s position of Science Editor was created to address mistakes like this.
As a cross-party Science and Technology Committee investigation in 2014 put it,
This lack of distinction within BBC News between proven scientific facts and opinions or beliefs is problematic.
It was déjà vu of what the BBC’s own governing body had concluded three years earlier, and came just months before yet another critical BBC Trust review in 2014:
The BBC has a duty to reflect the weight of scientific agreement but it should also reflect the existence of critical views appropriately. Audiences should be able to understand from the context and clarity of the BBC’s output what weight to give to critical voices.
I couldn’t help but share my frustration that this is still happening:
Due respect, it's appalling to today see @BBCNews Science Ed@davidshukmanbbc indulge climate chg denial & a false sense of debate...(1/4)
To be clear, I am certain that Shukman intended nothing untoward with his report. It could easily be fixed. It is not the blatant, egregious climate denial that ismostly in the BBC’s past. He kindly replied with an explanation:
Due respect, it's appalling to today see @BBCNews Science Ed@davidshukmanbbc indulge climate chg denial & a false sense of debate...(1/4)
@GeoffreySupran also with respect, I was referring to the opposing climate views ie debate of the two leading US presidential candidates
This is important journalism. I applaud Shukman for reflecting climate change as the electoral wedge issue it may be. He does an excellent job, in the BBC Trust’s words, of “reflect[ing] the existence of critical views”.
Sorely lacking from Shukman’s broadcast, however, are “the weight of scientific agreement” and “context and clarity of...what weight to give critical voices”. My point is that these subtleties of reporting matter too. They help make the difference between fair balance and false balance - a difference the BBC has struggled to respect. Repeated day after day, their additive creep must be guarded against to avoid the innocuous becoming the insidious.
The public absolutely deserve to hear the debate. But they also deserve to know that the debate is political, not scientific. They deserve to know that science-wise, one side is right and the other is wrong. They deserve to know that scientists unanimously agree that humans are causing climate change. And they deserve to know that President Trump would be the only leader in the world to oppose that consensus.
Pat Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.” So how can the BBC avoid its damaging lapses, where the two get blurred?
Extrapolating from the “disappoint[ment]” of the Parliamentary committee chair, Andrew Miller, “that the BBC does not ensure all of its [programs] and presenters reflect the actual state of climate science in its output”, here’s one idea: The BBC could adopt a new reporting protocol, whereby whenever individuals express opinions on climate change of any kind, or perhaps whenever the subject arises at all, reporters must include a one-sentence summary of the scientific consensus in their story.
This (partial) solution would give journalists an uncontroversial way to apply the recommendation of Miller’s committee “to challenge statements that stray too far from science.” And empirical studies suggest that while this approach would not be enough to fully offset the crippling confusion caused by “falsely balanced” reporting, it would help. It wouldn’t be as funny as pitting 97 climate scientists against three climate deniers, but it would be practical.
There are plenty of examples of this strategy. In May, when the Washington Post reported Donald Trump’s dubious position(s) on climate change, it made sure to clarify, with citations, that,
There is a scientific consensus that humans are causing the planet to warm.
And last month, when Brian Cox was confronted by a climate denier on live television, he too left no room for confusion. There is “absolute, absolute consensus,” he underscored.
Posted by dana1981 on Monday, 12 September, 2016
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