Climate change attracts lots of media attention, but the coverage fluctuates from month to month. Over the past decade, a lot of coverage in the mainstream media was given to two big climate conferences: the Copenhagen summit of 2009 and the Paris Climate Summit in 2015. However, between these summits media coverage radically declined across the world.

There are many possible reasons for these types of fluctuations. One of them is other world events taking precedence. Due to finite numbers of newspaper pages or airtime minutes, other issues such as economical recession may get more attention. Other possible reasons are related to climate change itself. Permanence of the problem can lead to emotional numbing among journalists and the public alike. On the other hand, it seems there is a shift from screaming climate change headlines to articles about consequences and other relevant topics.

Over the past two decades, climate change has been the most covered environmental news topic and due to its permanence, it is likely to remain so. In the context of environmental education, it is interesting to examine and discuss how widely and from what point of view climate change is being covered in different medias.

United Nations Photo

Climate change is an extremely wide topic linked to the natural and social sciences, technology and morals. The Finnish Meteorological Institute provides annual climate change courses tailored to journalists because in-depth understanding of the subject requires specialized knowledge.

The mainstream media provides mainly realistic information about climate change, but occasional inadequate reporting occurs nonetheless. Civil society plays an important role in correcting factual distortion.

The mainstream media has been criticized for its tendency to present “equally” different views on climate change by giving experts and climate change deniers equal weight. This leads to distorted ideas of the actual reality of the issue since proven scientific evidence for climate change is unequivocal. Only about 3% of climate scientists dispute climate change or that it is a result of human activities.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

As mentioned, climate change is a prominent topic in every possible media imaginable. Scientists are publishing articles; the media are covering the causes, consequences and solutions, as well as citizens’ roles in newspapers, magazines, television and radio. In addition, non-governmental organizations are campaigning against climate change and the internet is full of environmental blogs and online discussions, not to mention all the poems, song lyrics, short stories, novels and non-fiction writing about the subject.

So climate change is easy to link to the entire spectrum of communication and we should remain critical towards the media’s intentions. In addition to efficient and flawless reporting, there is plenty of well-intentioned but inadequate information. Also, climate change deniers are put in place to intentionally mislead the public. Acknowledging these challenges is the first step to solving them.

For media education, climate change is a particularly juicy topic. For instance, by analysing newspaper articles, it is possible to examine their strategies to impact readers’ attitudes or behaviour and take a close look at the reliability of their sources and the interests they might serve. The media stories become more meaningful if you discuss them together with students and how the stories might be linked to their daily life as well as what kind of thoughts they evoke. You might also want to discuss inadequate and misleading stories in relation to their sources and intentions.

Philip McMaster

Traditionally, science communication has been produced by journalists, research institute press officers, scientists, active citizens and the media. Science communication can refer to the various ways science and scientific knowledge are linked to activities in society. In this wider context, science centres, museums, television programmes, events, websites, popular science books and magazines are also science communicators. The goal is to interact with the public through two-way dialogue, for example in social media.

The biggest challenge of science communication is how to popularize specific scientific language and vocabulary without making it inaccurate and overly simplified. Basically, the bigger the audience, the more clear the message should be communicated. Another significant challenge is the potential controversy over research results which sometimes do contradict each other. Therefore, science communicators must present the results comprehensively but at the same time avoid vagueness. Uncertainty is a part of scientific knowledge. There are no definite truths, but rather it is a continuous process.

Tricks on Science Communication

The goal of scientific journalism is not only to share information but also to provide tools to interpret and evaluate knowledge and to make it understandable. Scientific-based climate change communication has its own tricks, which can also be used in other types of scientific communication.

• In order to get the message through and keep up the interest, make scientific information entertaining. Entertainment helps the audience to relax and better engage in the topic.
• Flavour science news with anecdotes, human stories and other narrative formats to engage and reach a non-expert audience.
• Use visuals and graphs. Illustration enlivens scientific data and brings science closer to the audience’s daily life.

Language is an instrument of thoughts and ideas. Fluent speaking and writing skills boost initiative, interaction and provide tools to impact public opinion. The main goal of climate change communication is to make different agents in society change their behaviour to a more climate-friendly direction. Over the past decades, climate activists have communicated climate change through different strategies and have realized the following problems with delivering and receiving the message:

• Climate change is such a major problem that the human mind has hard time to comprehend it. Additionally, several psychological defence mechanisms prevent us from thinking about it and taking action against it.
• It is not possible to observe changing climate through our senses, because climate change is a statistical, although a worldwide, phenomenon causing change. In a way, we have to rely on scientists suggesting climate change is a scientific fact.
• People are rarely willing to change their attitudes and belief systems and they rather like to hear messages that solidify their habitual patterns.
• A small but loud group of climate change deniers spread disinformation and cause confusion.
• Climate change is a long-term problem occurring slowly enough for our minds to normalize it. It does not feel like big news or something we should respond to.

We should keep in mind, however, that human behaviour can’t be changed through communication only but that different motivating factors are needed and they may differ from person to person. Motivation to adapt climate-friendly behaviour depends on personal and social values, individual experiences, skills, knowhow, technical solutions, financial incentives, legislations and regulations. All these factors need to be taken into account when promoting climate-friendly action.

In spite of several challenges, climate change communication is not hopeless. There are many tools to help you get your message across. Bear in mind that repetition is the key, and pay attention to messages and messengers best engaging with your target audience. The following three aspects may help to clarify your communication strategy:

1. The sender of the message is someone whom the receiver finds trustworthy. The sender can be someone from the receiver’s inner circle or a like-minded person. For a natural scientist, a reliable sender would probably be an established scientist, whereas for a passionate winter sportsman, a successful snowboarder could be the right person to get the message across.
2. The message needs to be repeated over and over again due to the fact that people today are constantly bombarded with messages. Perseverance helps to get your message across. In addition, money, power and access to media can help to reach the targeted audience.
3. Messages shouldn’t shake up the target audience’s belief system at its core. Ideally, messages should be adapted and formulated according to receiver’s values.

Climate fiction i.e. cli-fi is literature dealing with climate change, and it is growing fast in popularity. Catastrophe is often central to the cli-fi genre. Climate change provides a fresh approach to examine utopian or dystopian worlds, and these landscapes vary from novel to novel. You might want to contemplate how the positive utopian world you would like to live in looks like and what should we do to achieve it.

Here is a short list of inspiring cli-fi novels written in English:

12 works of climate fiction everyone should read

Human beings have always been surrounded by stories. Stories have communicated important knowledge about the world, life, history, our ancestors and the beginning of the universe. They have entertained and comforted us. They have been passed down from generation to generation and helped us to build unity and bridges between the generations.

Traditional storytelling has changed over time, but stories are still important. Literature conveys the full spectrum of life. It conveys knowledge about social events and institutions, values, norms, beliefs and attitudes. Imagination and stories give hope and new perspectives through fictional worlds and teach important life lessons. Moreover, stories and their metaphors and humour help us to process complex and sensitive issues.

Climate change tends to trigger strong and negative emotions, such as anxiety, fear and helplessness, which are often denied or supressed. Literature and stories can help to process distress and expand an empathetic reach from our own life to the lives of others and different species.

Fiction can help to clarify jumbled emotions and personal goals. The reader is provided control over their emotional stance and allowed to face difficult issues indirectly through processing problems of a fictional character and discussing issues that come up at a general level. At the same time, analysing one’s own thoughts and ideas can be a starting point for the creative writing process. Words often help to describe and capture those emotions for which there is no easy name. Conversely, turning experienced events into fiction can clarify messy real life situations. Potentially, everything becomes more focused resulting in emotions and experiences becoming easier to comprehend.