Ohio State Conference Marries Climate Science and New Media
By TC Brown
From space, the picture is rather stark. A “little blue band” of atmosphere, responsible for supporting all life, hugs the planet.
Senator John Glenn, a two-time space traveler, delivered this powerful and thought-provoking imagery of Earth’s climate at the tail end of the three-day McCormick Climate Change Conference at Ohio State.
Glenn told a gathering of journalists, broadcasters and bloggers that when he looked back at the planet from space, any doubts he harbored about the consequences of changes in climate vanished.
“That is basically our atmosphere. You realize it isn’t as big as you think it is,” Glenn said. “That puts into perspective of what fragile and tiny air support we live in here.”
This is a ‘film’ of air, not a huge layer or sphere of atmosphere, noted Glenn. “If we foul that film up, it can well be the end of a lot of life as we know it on Earth.”
Giving journalists a wide variety of perspectives on climate change from public policy leaders and scientists was a key goal of the McCormick Climate Change Conference at Ohio State, held Oct. 12-14. The conference attracted journalists from major newsrooms across the country as well as Australia.
“Journalists left the conference with new ideas, new resources and new thinking,” said Kiplinger Director Debra Jasper. “A lot of attendees told us the conference not only gave them a chance to learn significantly more about the science and polices connected to climate change, but also to explore the best ways to present that information to their audiences.”
The forum presented an abundance of topical material. Drop into any workshop and you might have heard terms or phrases like “climate monsters,” “Twitter,” “rising energy prices,” “Ning,” “glaciers akin to ‘Dead Man Walking,’” “Delicious” and “11 of the last 12 years warmest on record.”
The McCormick Foundation provided the bulk of funding for the conference, partnering with the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism, the John Glenn School of Public Affairs and OSU’s Climate, Water and Carbon Program.
The seminars included blue-chip presenters from the field of climate change research, including, among others:
Dr. Lonnie Thompson, an ice-core study pioneer, winner of the 2005 National Medal of Science and one of Time magazine’s 2008 “Heroes of the Environment”
Dr. Laurence Smith, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Geography
Fred Pearce, climate change author and former editor of New Scientist
Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson, chief of OSU’s ice core paleoclimatology group
Dr. Andy Keeler, a Glenn School economist and a former member of the White House Climate Change Policy Team
William Becker, executive director of the Presidential Action Climate Project
Elliot Diringer, international strategies director of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change
The conference convened a cross section of journalists—writers, broadcasters and editors—including representatives from U.S. News & World Report, Washington Post.com, the Associated Press, CBS News, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Chicago Tribune, The (Baltimore) Sun, the Las Vegas Sun, Houston Public Television, The Columbus Dispatch, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, ClimateWire and many others.
Exchanges between scientists and reporters were especially appealing and effective, and hopefully will contribute to future news coverage, said Doug Alsdorf, director of the Climate, Water and Carbon Program.
“Science conferences are usually one lecture after another; always one way,” Alsdorf said. “This was truly two-way, with journalists asking questions. We ran out of time and that is a good thing.”
A Consummate Match: Climate Change and New Media
Science and climate issues ruled the days. But one eye-opening session covered the explosion of channels in which information can be delivered to the masses. In “New Tricks of the Trade: Reporting on Climate Change in the Digital Age,” presenters Debra Jasper, director of the Kiplinger Program, Betsy Hubbard, Kiplinger Program Manager, and Hank Wilson, a Digital Media Fellow in the John Glenn School, took attendees through the Alice-in-Wonderland world of digital media. These included:
Twitter
Ning
RSS
Delicious
Spokeo
Many-eyes.com
This presentation sparked lively exchanges, not just for journalists, but also for some climate change researches who scribbled frantically in notebooks in the back of the room.
The material was surprising and revealing to Aysha Ghadiali, a freelance reporter for CBS News.
“I’m a young person and everyone thinks I am tech savvy. I need to get on it,” Ghadiali said. “Some of the scientists said it’s best to tell the climate change story with pictures and graphs. Climate change and new media were meant for each other.”
In addition to offering digital media training, the conference made use of a number of platforms to reach a broader audience. The main McCormick Climate Change Web site offered journalists details about speakers, the schedule and Columbus.
A Ning social networking site provided a forum for reporters to discuss interests and backgrounds, post blogs and check links to climate change stories. During the conference, daily stories, photos, video and a podcast of the event were posted.
Conference participants and those not attending kept up with running, real-time commentary through a Twitter feed. In addition, WOSU videotaped the opening day with plans to use footage as part of their science programming. This will include sharing with a consortium of other public television stations.
Lastly, Fora.TV, a Web channel that broadcasts video from conferences and forums, will post keynote speeches from the event.
Covering Climate Change Science and Policy
During the three-day conference, workshops covered a full range of topics, including: “The Public Debate on Climate Change in a YouTube World,” “Our Future in a Warmer World,” “Local Ecology and Climate Change,” “Public Health and Climate Change,” “The International Challenge,” and “The Next Administration: Comparing the Obama and McCain Policy Proposals.” On the final day, researchers led reporters through OSU’s Byrd Polar Research Center, where they learned about ice core research and frigidly experienced, first-hand, the 30-degree-below-zero temperatures of the ice core storage room.
For the most part, lecturers presented sobering information. Coping with the impacts of increased greenhouse gasses will be a costly proposition and may well require individual sacrifice. Translation? We may all face skyrocketing energy costs, a prediction that few political leaders are willing to discuss. For instance, both Barack Obama and John McCain have said they want to reduce prices at the pump.
“The 20th Century relied on cheap energy and we expect to have it forever, but we are not going to have it,” said Berrien Moore, executive director of Climate Central. “Things are totally outside of our control, not unlike the current world financial situation. We need a new energy future.”
Energy costs are a major focus for the public, and John Funk, the energy and utilities writer for The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, would have welcomed even more in-depth discussion on the topic.
“Global warming was new to me, so I’m glad I came to this,” Funk said. “I write about energy prices and that’s what people care about. To keep prices low at the pump is counter to attacking global warming. It’s not going to be cheap on you because of climate change.”
Overall, journalists gave positive marks to this conference. As one journalist said, “It actually far exceeded my expectations. I didn’t realize how thoroughly this would apply to my work.”
Mark Hallett, a senior program officer from the McCormick Foundation, said the conference was particularly helpful at a time when too few reporters are available to cover complex issues like climate change.
“Really hungry reporters from a variety of media got steeped in critical issues and found creative ways to reach a much broader audience,” Hallett continued. “This conference got everyone to understand these issues better so they will be able to write more confidently and go home with new sources and resources.”
From space, the picture is rather stark. A “little blue band” of atmosphere, responsible for supporting all life, hugs the planet.
Senator John Glenn, a two-time space traveler, delivered this powerful and thought-provoking imagery of Earth’s climate at the tail end of the three-day McCormick Climate Change Conference at Ohio State.
Glenn told a gathering of journalists, broadcasters and bloggers that when he looked back at the planet from space, any doubts he harbored about the consequences of changes in climate vanished.
“That is basically our atmosphere. You realize it isn’t as big as you think it is,” Glenn said. “That puts into perspective of what fragile and tiny air support we live in here.”
This is a ‘film’ of air, not a huge layer or sphere of atmosphere, noted Glenn. “If we foul that film up, it can well be the end of a lot of life as we know it on Earth.”
Giving journalists a wide variety of perspectives on climate change from public policy leaders and scientists was a key goal of the McCormick Climate Change Conference at Ohio State, held Oct. 12-14. The conference attracted journalists from major newsrooms across the country as well as Australia.
“Journalists left the conference with new ideas, new resources and new thinking,” said Kiplinger Director Debra Jasper. “A lot of attendees told us the conference not only gave them a chance to learn significantly more about the science and polices connected to climate change, but also to explore the best ways to present that information to their audiences.”
The forum presented an abundance of topical material. Drop into any workshop and you might have heard terms or phrases like “climate monsters,” “Twitter,” “rising energy prices,” “Ning,” “glaciers akin to ‘Dead Man Walking,’” “Delicious” and “11 of the last 12 years warmest on record.”
The McCormick Foundation provided the bulk of funding for the conference, partnering with the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism, the John Glenn School of Public Affairs and OSU’s Climate, Water and Carbon Program.
The seminars included blue-chip presenters from the field of climate change research, including, among others:
Dr. Lonnie Thompson, an ice-core study pioneer, winner of the 2005 National Medal of Science and one of Time magazine’s 2008 “Heroes of the Environment”
Dr. Laurence Smith, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Geography
Fred Pearce, climate change author and former editor of New Scientist
Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson, chief of OSU’s ice core paleoclimatology group
Dr. Andy Keeler, a Glenn School economist and a former member of the White House Climate Change Policy Team
William Becker, executive director of the Presidential Action Climate Project
Elliot Diringer, international strategies director of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change
The conference convened a cross section of journalists—writers, broadcasters and editors—including representatives from U.S. News & World Report, Washington Post.com, the Associated Press, CBS News, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Chicago Tribune, The (Baltimore) Sun, the Las Vegas Sun, Houston Public Television, The Columbus Dispatch, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, ClimateWire and many others.
Exchanges between scientists and reporters were especially appealing and effective, and hopefully will contribute to future news coverage, said Doug Alsdorf, director of the Climate, Water and Carbon Program.
“Science conferences are usually one lecture after another; always one way,” Alsdorf said. “This was truly two-way, with journalists asking questions. We ran out of time and that is a good thing.”
A Consummate Match: Climate Change and New Media
Science and climate issues ruled the days. But one eye-opening session covered the explosion of channels in which information can be delivered to the masses. In “New Tricks of the Trade: Reporting on Climate Change in the Digital Age,” presenters Debra Jasper, director of the Kiplinger Program, Betsy Hubbard, Kiplinger Program Manager, and Hank Wilson, a Digital Media Fellow in the John Glenn School, took attendees through the Alice-in-Wonderland world of digital media. These included:
Ning
RSS
Delicious
Spokeo
Many-eyes.com
This presentation sparked lively exchanges, not just for journalists, but also for some climate change researches who scribbled frantically in notebooks in the back of the room.
The material was surprising and revealing to Aysha Ghadiali, a freelance reporter for CBS News.
“I’m a young person and everyone thinks I am tech savvy. I need to get on it,” Ghadiali said. “Some of the scientists said it’s best to tell the climate change story with pictures and graphs. Climate change and new media were meant for each other.”
In addition to offering digital media training, the conference made use of a number of platforms to reach a broader audience. The main McCormick Climate Change Web site offered journalists details about speakers, the schedule and Columbus.
A Ning social networking site provided a forum for reporters to discuss interests and backgrounds, post blogs and check links to climate change stories. During the conference, daily stories, photos, video and a podcast of the event were posted.
Conference participants and those not attending kept up with running, real-time commentary through a Twitter feed. In addition, WOSU videotaped the opening day with plans to use footage as part of their science programming. This will include sharing with a consortium of other public television stations.
Lastly, Fora.TV, a Web channel that broadcasts video from conferences and forums, will post keynote speeches from the event.
Covering Climate Change Science and Policy
During the three-day conference, workshops covered a full range of topics, including: “The Public Debate on Climate Change in a YouTube World,” “Our Future in a Warmer World,” “Local Ecology and Climate Change,” “Public Health and Climate Change,” “The International Challenge,” and “The Next Administration: Comparing the Obama and McCain Policy Proposals.” On the final day, researchers led reporters through OSU’s Byrd Polar Research Center, where they learned about ice core research and frigidly experienced, first-hand, the 30-degree-below-zero temperatures of the ice core storage room.
For the most part, lecturers presented sobering information. Coping with the impacts of increased greenhouse gasses will be a costly proposition and may well require individual sacrifice. Translation? We may all face skyrocketing energy costs, a prediction that few political leaders are willing to discuss. For instance, both Barack Obama and John McCain have said they want to reduce prices at the pump.
“The 20th Century relied on cheap energy and we expect to have it forever, but we are not going to have it,” said Berrien Moore, executive director of Climate Central. “Things are totally outside of our control, not unlike the current world financial situation. We need a new energy future.”
Energy costs are a major focus for the public, and John Funk, the energy and utilities writer for The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, would have welcomed even more in-depth discussion on the topic.
“Global warming was new to me, so I’m glad I came to this,” Funk said. “I write about energy prices and that’s what people care about. To keep prices low at the pump is counter to attacking global warming. It’s not going to be cheap on you because of climate change.”
Overall, journalists gave positive marks to this conference. As one journalist said, “It actually far exceeded my expectations. I didn’t realize how thoroughly this would apply to my work.”
Mark Hallett, a senior program officer from the McCormick Foundation, said the conference was particularly helpful at a time when too few reporters are available to cover complex issues like climate change.
“Really hungry reporters from a variety of media got steeped in critical issues and found creative ways to reach a much broader audience,” Hallett continued. “This conference got everyone to understand these issues better so they will be able to write more confidently and go home with new sources and resources.”
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Climate change stories--inspired by McC3
Cristine Russell, "Juggling Beats, Localizing Climate." Columbia Journalism Review, 10/17/08.
Knight Science Journalism Tracker, 10/14/08 and 10/17/08.
K. Kaufman, "Bank offers $10M for energy loan program,"The Desert Sun, 10/30/08.
K. Kaufman, "Energy loans may get $10M boost," The Desert Sun, 10/30/08.
K. Kaufman, "Coachella Valley's need for green powers firm," The Desert Sun, 11/3/08.
Editorial: Traditional coal plants have no future, The Roanoke Times, 11/5/08.
Anita Weier, "What will the next president do about global warming?" The Capital Times, 10/29/08.
Jennifer Cunningham. Warming will raise sea levels, recede coast. Herald News, 11/17/08
Kim Smith Dedam. Climate change Indications on ice. Press Republican, 11/15/08.
Knight Science Journalism Tracker, 10/14/08 and 10/17/08.
K. Kaufman, "Bank offers $10M for energy loan program,"The Desert Sun, 10/30/08.
K. Kaufman, "Energy loans may get $10M boost," The Desert Sun, 10/30/08.
K. Kaufman, "Coachella Valley's need for green powers firm," The Desert Sun, 11/3/08.
Editorial: Traditional coal plants have no future, The Roanoke Times, 11/5/08.
Anita Weier, "What will the next president do about global warming?" The Capital Times, 10/29/08.
Jennifer Cunningham. Warming will raise sea levels, recede coast. Herald News, 11/17/08
Kim Smith Dedam. Climate change Indications on ice. Press Republican, 11/15/08.
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