Police monitor protests outside Parliament house in Canberra. Photo: Conor Ashleigh

After hearing a brief reference to climate change protests in Canberra on the radio earlier in the week my curiousity was sufficiently piqued to have a quick search through some of the major Australian news sites for more information. After looking over The SMH, Age and Australian websites I came up blank. Only after googling the protests did I come across a brief article in ABC News, ‘Protestors Disrupt Swan’s post-Budget speech’:

Climate change activists have strung a banner across the front of Parliament House to protest against the Federal Government’s carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Half a dozen people were involved in the protest, which called on the Government to set tougher emissions reduction targets.

Two of the protesters abseiled from the building’s roof to unveil a banner saying ‘Carbon budget blowout’.

The protesters also interrupted the Treasurer’s post-budget address to the National Press Club.

Ten protesters from Rising Tide Newcastle rallied in the Great Hall before being removed by security guards a short time later.

Spokeswoman Georgina Woods says the Government has failed to deliver on its promise to reduce greenhouse emissions.

While perhaps not front page material, I was surprised to find nearly no mention of the protests in mainstream media, and particularly considering several of the protesters were arrested. Most likely the story was not deemed newsworthy amidst the media budget scramble.

The following day The Australian continued on this theme, focusing on business views with an article, ‘Commerce group calls for brake on emissions trade law’. In typical fashion both articles employed the usual frame of economy versus environment to portray Australia’s ongoing policy debate. From The Sydney Morning Herald:

“We are worried about the impact that a lot of this scheme will have on the balance sheets.

“Some companies in my view are seeing half their profitability on average in the last eight years taken up with the impost that they are going to face.”

From The Australian:

The Opposition has also been emphasising the potential cost of the scheme for smaller businesses that will not have to purchase emissions permits, but will still face higher electricity costs.

ACCI has commissioned a study from Castalia Strategic Advisers on the impact of the scheme on plastic and chemical manufacturing, food processing and freight and transportation, to be finalised in June.

Undoubtedly this frame has merit. The economy is indeed an important consideration and the single biggest concern of politicians and the business community when weighing in on climate policies. Nonetheless it dichotomises the economy and the environment, portraying them as necessarily in conflict. This distinction in overly simplistic and potentially damaging. It reminds me of a scene from An Inconvenient Truth where Al Gore mocks a slide from a Republican convention displaying a picture of the globe and a pile of gold bars on either side of a set of scales. I would argue that this is the way we are encouraged to think about economic reform as it relates to climate change. Certainly not conducive to an open and enquiring attitude.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong during the announcement of the Government s changes to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Canberra. Photo: Andrew Meares

The media was abuzz today with news of Rudd’s proposed changes to the government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS). After being being stymied by left and right, the new scheme offers increased compensation for big polluters and sets a higher range target for 2020 in an attempt to placate big business and environmental opposition. So far the changes have failed to generate support from either end of the spectrum.

As has been pointed out in a number of media commentaries (See ‘Rudd’s U-Turn’ featuring Michelle Grattan from The Age), the bulk of the changes are directed at the coalition. Unsurprisingly then the media chose to focus primarily on the Malcolm Turnbull’s response. The Australian published an article with the headline, ‘Labor pressures Malcolm Turnbull over ETS:’

THE Rudd Government today increased pressure on Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull to state his party’s position on emission trading.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday’s announcement of an amended Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme had met with wide support, but said it is “quite clear” from the opposition’s response to yesterday’s amended scheme “that the coalition remains hopelessly divided”.

Meanwhile, The Sydney Mornings Herald’s front page piece, ‘Carbon bill burns as Rudd fiddles’, zeroed in on Turnbull’s response, and contained only a brief reference to independent senator, Nick Xenophon and the Greens party in the foot of the article. The Illawarra Mercury took the business angle with the article ‘BlueScope Steel welcomes delay to carbon scheme.’

To be fair all the major Australian papers gave some space to environmental concerns in shorter articles or opinion pieces. The Age published an article: ‘Emissions rethink could trigger early election: Greens’, while The SMH tuned into the greens debacle with environmental groups on page four of the paper (‘A wedge through green movement’):

THE Federal Government’s revised emissions trading scheme has caused the environmental movement to cave in on itself.

The Greens dismissed the Government’s decision to reconsider the 25 percent green-house pollution reduction target as an “almost irrelevant green distraction” and were privately critical of the groups that supported it.

These environmental groups, the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF and the Climate Institute, said it was important the amended package was passed by Parliament.

Despite this there was no doubting the preponderance of interest in coalition and business responses. Of course this is not in the least bit surprising. The Liberal party has far more media salience then the Greens, and business interests have been the major determinant of Labor’s climate policy thus far, as has become all the clear in Rudd’s latest policy maneuver. To date, environmental pressures have taken a backseat in Australia’s climate change policy debate, and this does not seem to be changing.

Quite naturally the media has responded to this and mirrored back to the government the major terms of the debate. Once again, it seems, green views will be drowned out by political bickering over the economy.

THERE’S nothing like healthy academic combat. In the corridors of Adelaide University, two respected professors on opposite sides of the climate change debate are pushing their theories on the subject, sparked by a new book that has sceptics rubbing their hands with glee.

Outspoken academic geologist Ian Plimer yesterday launched Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science, concluding that scientific modelling had placed too much emphasis on the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and global warming should not be blamed on increased human activity.

…Defending climatologists and thousands of other scientists, Barry Brook, who heads Adelaide University’s Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, poured cold water on Professor Plimer’s book and said his colleague had only used “selective evidence” when quoting more than 200 scientists and from peer-reviewed papers.

…With the international debate on climate change raging, Professor Plimer yesterday said people were embracing his book because they were frustrated with the one-sided debate on global warming.

It reminded me of something that Eric Pooley wrote in his critique of climate change journalism (see below):

Though journalism often fails to convey the urgency and enormity of this challenge, it now generally articulates the basic consensus without feeling honour-bound to hunt down opposing views for reasons of putative balance. That’s progress.

It would seem then that climate change reporting has regressed somewhat in Australia, at least in its coverage of Plimer’s book. Certainly after reading that article you would be left with the strong impression that the scientific jury is still out on climate change.

Mr Garrett has also been forced to qualify his suggestion that ice across the whole of the Antarctic continent is melting.

He made the claims while being interviewed by the ABC’s Lateline program on April 6 about the reported break-up of parts of the Wilkins ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Weekend Australian reported that while some ice-shelf melting is under way on the peninsula and in other parts of west Antarctica that may be related to global warming, ice shelves in east Antarctica remain intact.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica.

At the same time, the area of sea ice around the continent is expanding, with sea ice growth in east Antarctica and the Ross Sea more than compensating for losses in west Antarctica. Contrary to public perceptions, parts of Antarctica have been cooling.

The article focuses on specific information (eg. antarctic cooling and ice expansion) and frames it in a way that seems to downplay the urgency of climate change (eg. ‘may be related to global warming’, as well as pointing out that east Antarctica is four times larger- the implication being that ice breakup in west Antarctica is of relatively small consequence). It draws on the IPPC’s scientifically conservative (though admittedly official) sea-rise estimates, although there are other scientists who have suggested far higher estimates based on different models and more recent research . Finally it only quotes sources who are sympathetic to sceptical climate change positions (with the exception of Garrett himself):

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said Mr Garrett had been alarmist. “There is a need to take practical action to tackle global warming, but using alarmist and patently wrong information to back his case will do nothing to instil confidence in his arguments,” he said.

“If Mr Garrett is going to get it so wrong on sea-level rises, how can people have confidence in comments he makes on glacier melts?”

James Cook University geophysicist Bob Carter said Mr Garrett’s claims were typical of the political misinformation surrounding the global warming debate. “Like Al Gore and the other dark greens that they seek to mollify, politicians completely fail to comprehend that we live on a dynamic planet Earth,” Professor Carter said.

No doubt, Garrett made a factual error and the media was right to pull him up. Interesting though to note the timing of the article, right as Plimer and his book are making their splash.

OUTSPOKEN academic geologist Ian Plimer says people are embracing his latest book on the science behind climate change because they are “disenfranchised” and increasingly frustrated with the “selective evidence” being presented about global warming.

The professor of mining geology at Adelaide University this morning launched Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science.

Professor Plimer told The Australian he had spent more than three years looking at the science behind climate change, concluding that too much emphasis had been placed on the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in scientific modelling, and the world’s warming should not be blamed on increased human activity.

“The evidence that we hear in public is very selective, the evidence that I give is comprehensive,” the earth scientist said.

“When you look at the selective evidence, then there’s a chance that you might be frightened about the end of the world.”

“When you look at the comprehensive evidence it just says the planet changes all the time.”

Professor Plimer said climate change scientists and advocates such as former US Vice President Al Gore pushed a political line, rather than an “integrated view of the planet”.

“Al Gore is a Hollywood sensation and he’s trying to make money out of scaring people witless and he does it very well,” he said. “He’s pushing the politics of one side of climate.”

Speaking after the launch, Professor Plimer said others, such as 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, had only looked at a “small body of evidence”.

In his own book, Professor Plimer has looked at 80 factors affecting climate change. It has been on sale since Monday and has begun it’s third print run of 5000.

There was no critical comment whatsoever. Indeed there has been nothing exploring or questioning Plimer’s claims in relation to climate change. Most articles -the majority of them columns (see below)- have focused on the contraversial and anti-establishment nature of Plimer’s arguments. If Plimer is really exposuring global warming as a scientific and political sham, then surely his argument would stand up to a bit of gentle media scrutiny? So far its all been hot air and fireworks.

Pouring hot cold water on the case for global warming? Illustration: Simon Bosch

There has been an influx of articles in the Australian media lately undermining the scientific consensus  on anthropogenic climate change. It begun with Peter Sheehan’s column in The Sydney Morning Herald on the 13 April (‘Beware the climate of conformity’). In it Sheehan reviews a book recently released by Australian geologist, Ian Plimer titled ‘Heaven and Earth’ questioning the scientific methods of climate scientists and concluding that dangerous warming is not occurring.

This generated a flurry of comments and inquiry, notably in The Australian, which published an article tracking Sheehan’s change of heart from 2006 to present. The first extract is taken from a column Sheehan wrote in September 2006; the second from his latest column.

(1)

DO yourself a favour. Go to see An Inconvenient Truth.

The story-line is as simple as it is stark: the Earth is in an intricately balanced equilibrium of temperature, ocean currents and weather patterns, and this equilibrium is being distorted. Massive disruption is going to occur without major corrective measures.

(2)

To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.

What this indicates, other than Sheehan’s impressionability, is the complexity of the debate and the fallibility of journalists in reporting scientific findings. Obviously the media has a role to play in voicing dissident opinions, but for the most part they have obscured rather than clarified the various positions on global warming.In attempting to honour journalistic objectivity by presenting ‘both sides’ of the story, the media has often given equal and unwarranted weight to the sceptic camp.

Not long after Sheehan’s column was published, The Australian reported on data indicating that parts of the Antarctic ice are growing (‘Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking’) generating further scepticism in the editorial pages:

DELIGHTED doomsayers who applauded the announcement last week that an ice sheet on the west Antarctic cost was collapsing should leave the champagne on ice. Because, as Greg Roberts reports in The Weekend Australian, it appears everything is icier in most of Antarctica.

At the same time Miranda Devine was arguing in a similar vein under the headline: ‘Planet doomsayers need a cold shower’:

It seems that when it comes to convincing the Government to take drastic, jobs-killing, economy-crushing and ultimately futile unilateral action on climate change, the ends justify the means. “How we get there matters much less than the fact that [emissions] are very low by 2050,” CSIRO’s Dr Michael Raupach, told the inquiry.

The purpose here is not to take sides, but rather to highlight the confusing and often contradictory message emerging from these headlines. What is the public supposed to make of Devine’s article balanced against Garnaut’s call for urgent climate action? I would argue that there is a need for a more critical press in climate change issues; more investigative features to balance out the disproportionate number of opinion pieces in this highly technical and nuanced area.  Without this I fear that the public will become -are already becoming- increasingly confused and often cynical about the entire climate change debate.

In a number of articles, the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse was used as a lead to talk about international talks on the threat posed by climate change to tourism in Antarctica. From ABC News (‘Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse sparks worldwide concern’)

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has used a conference on the future of Antarctica to warn the world that more needs to be done to combat climate change.

Her warning comes as scientists worry about the breaking away of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and concern about the impact of tourism on one of the world’s most unspoilt regions.

Antarctica is often described as beautiful, a continent so remote and unspoilt it stands in contrast to much of the rest of the world.

From USA Today (‘United States urges more protection for poles’):

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Monday called for enhanced protection of the Earth’s polar regions, proposing mandatory limits on Antarctic tourism and urging increased environmental research there and in the Arctic.

Opening a two-week conference of parties to the 50-year-old Antarctic Treaty, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the recent collapse of an Antarctic ice bridge was a stark reminder that the poles are gravely threatened by climate change and human activity.

Interestingly, this weekend’s  Sydney Morning Herald published a front page travel piece on Antarctica following this weeks buzz over the region (‘Voyage into the ice’). The article contains only a brief reference to tourism concerns in the final paragraphs:

There are many who argue that it’s too risky to allow large numbers of tourists to traipse across the world’s last great wilderness.

I can’t help feeling that the price for allowing operators to make money out of Antarctica should be a responsibility to turn the tourists into advocates for conservation.

An interesting choice of article, I thought worth mentioning.

A polar bear swims near ice floes in Baffin Bay in the Arctic last summer. Photo: Associated Press

The Australian published an article yesterday with the headline ‘Antarctic ice shelf at risk of collapse‘. According to the article, an Antarctic icebridge has snapped threatening the collapse of the Wilkins ice shelf which is about a quarter of the size of Tasmania. At the same time, newspapers from all over the world were reporting on new data indicating that pre-summer arctic ice is at its thinnest ever (see The Wall Street Journal: ‘Polar ice cap shrinks further and thins’).

Arguably both these stories warrant similar attention. Both deal with climate change and the imminent disintegration of ice in polar regions, and both have caused alarm in scientific communities. Interesting then that the arctic ice cap story has generated far more interest in the press. Perhaps this is because of the closer proximity of the Arctic to most of the world’s population, or maybe it was because the Arctic data was collected by US scientists. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Arctic melt is already affecting tourism, shipping and trade routes. It has persuaded several countries to push for territorial claims in newly accessible regions of the Arctic. The Arctic melt is already affecting tourism, shipping and trade routes.

The latest figures were released the same day that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened a U.S.-hosted summit in Baltimore, which brings together two diplomatic bodies that govern the Arctic and Antarctic. The Obama administration is arguing for more restrictions on polar tourism to protect the fragile environment.

It would seem then that economic and political concerns are also relevant to the pertinence of this story. Indeed if scientific concern were the only motivating force behind environmental reporting we might see very different patterns and priorities emerge in the global media. Afterall the the distintegration of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is ultimately an international, not a regional issue.

The task now is to translate the Web’s passionate, wonkish debate in ways that engage a general reader.

To do that, individual journalists must master the nuances of the story and devise ways to present them to readers. Since this is a big, ugly war with trillions of dollars at stake, that shouldn’t be too hard. There’s plenty of conflict for journalists to snack on. But the central problem confronting climate policy reporters cannot be solved by climate policy reporters. That problem is the choice news organisations have made not to devote the necessary man-power and column inches to the climate policy story. Top editors need to decide that this will no longer be a disposable beat. Until that happens, the press will continue to underreport the story of the century: the race to save the planet from a meteor known as mankind.

An interesting read…