Climate change experts impress top US news editors at Stanford University

September 9, 2007 at 3:35 pm | Posted in California, Climate change, Editors, Leadership, Newspapers, Scientists, United States, US media | 4 Comments

THERE SHOULD be no doubt that global warming is the most compelling issue of our time. If unchecked, it will threaten our national security, stress our economy and degrade our quality of life in so many ways. Our willingness to confront this unprecedented heating of the planet is a test of our moral obligation to our children and their children.

Yet it remains a second-tier issue among the candidates for president of the United States. This is unacceptable. California, which elevated its clout by moving its primary to Feb. 5, must demand that candidates who want to compete for votes here must prioritize an issue that is at once very local and very global.

The world effectively lost eight years in the effort to apply a brake to climate change while the Bush administration slowly evolved from denial to foot dragging in response to a strong scientific consensus that human activity – namely, the consumption of fossil fuels – was putting life on Earth on a collision course with disaster.Some of the nation’s leading experts on climate change gathered at Stanford University last week to discuss climate change with top editors of major U.S. newspapers. One of the striking features of the all-day sessions was the ability of the scientists to present such eye-popping findings with clarity and professional calm.

Read more of today’s Editorial The issue of our time dated Sunday, September 9, 2007 in my transatlantic local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, at SFGateDOTcom 😉

This one’s for Rob over at climatespin because he wrote a great post on climate change opinions and editorials, tying together the views of Steve Outing and Mark Lynas. (That followed his earlier post The morality of global warming which highlights the spineless attitudes of some reporters.) The media has contorted itself into a twisted bind and has lost direction over the business of objectivity when it comes to climate change. Rob is right that Jay Rosen provided useful background—that is, objectivity was originally intended to blunt the pen so it’s no longer mightier than the sword. Instead of demobilising an attack weapon to prevent harm to innocents, we have lost a tool that carves out the truth in plain letters to enhance understanding.

So, here I am, keeping track of news reports on that meeting at Stanford University last Wednesday, 5 September 2007. As more appear (if they do) I shall add them to this list:

The issue of our time
San Francisco Chronicle, USA
THERE SHOULD be no doubt that global warming is the most compelling issue of our time. If unchecked, it will threaten our national security, …

Rick Rogriquez: Global warming — a hot issue that won’t go away
Sacramento Bee, USA
A group of the world’s leading scholars on climate change had a message for news executives earlier this week: In reporting the global warming story, …

So this editor walks into a bar with three climate scientists. . .
Seattle Post Intelligencer
OK, we have to admit that we have no joke to go with that headline, although Stephan Pastis of the Pearls Before Swine comic strip did provide this little gem just in time to save our bacon. …

Stanford’s Jon Krosnick, who studies communications, political science and psychology, said the public has realized there’s a problem and “that …

… Here is an audio file of the whole plenary session. And the Watchdog Earth blog also covered this session — look here.

The reason this intrigues me, is that this is the first time I have heard of such a high-level meeting of senior editors and scientists in America. It seems to have been very effective for the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, who sounds quite impressed by the scientists’ clear and honest explanations, though the scientists’ efforts seemed to have less clarity for the editor of the Sacramento Bee. I would love to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting, and seen how the other 16 senior media representatives responded (though I’d have to buy more carbon offsets to get back there, so I shall make do with t’Internet for now 😉

My husband took this beautiful gold-backed mosaic of the angel of HOPE on Stanford Memorial Church speaks volumes. Particularly poignant is the way HOPE is dressed in green and clutching an anchor.