How Are Things Going Before Earth Day?

Earth Day is Monday, so how are we doing? Is the news media helping us create a better environment?

Bill McKibben follows issues centered around the climate crisis better than almost anyone. Here’s the stark truth from his substack, The Crucial Years:

At the most fundamental level, new figures last week showed that atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—reached new all-time highs last year. Here’s how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the figures:

While the rise in the three heat-trapping gases recorded in the air samples collected by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) in 2023 was not quite as high as the record jumps observed in recent years, they were in line with the steep increases observed during the past decade. 

The global surface concentration of CO₂, averaged across all 12 months of 2023, was 419.3 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 2.8 ppm during the year. This was the 12th consecutive year CO₂ increased by more than 2 ppm, extending the highest sustained rate of CO₂ increases during the 65-year monitoring record. Three consecutive years of CO₂  growth of 2 ppm or more had not been seen in NOAA’s monitoring records prior to 2014. Atmospheric CO₂ is now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels.

Entirely unsurprisingly, the planet’s temperature has also continued to rise.

The Crucial Years, a substack by Bill McKibben, April 10, 2024.

Not long ago, McKibben headed an organization called 350.org, which advocated keeping average surface concentration of CO2 below 350 ppm. At 419.3 ppm, and increasing about 2 ppm per year, we are going the wrong direction.

How do news audiences perceive the climate crisis? A recent study explored this question. Why is it important? How we perceive and receive news about the climate crisis determines, in large part, whether and how we address it.

Around Earth Day, we expect to see more news stories about the climate crisis. Folks at Reuters Institute studied news use and attitudes about climate change, using data from Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA. The issues are similar to what we see in response to media on any topic: Should we trust scientists? What is misinformation and what isn’t? What news sources are trustworthy? Are direct action protests covered fairly by media? They found a lot:

• In most of the eight countries there has been a slight increase in climate change news use, with just over half (55%) on average using climate change news in the previous week.
• Climate news avoidance and trust in climate information from the news media have remained roughly stable, but avoidance has decreased slightly in the UK, USA, and Pakistan, as well as trust in the UK and Germany.
• Scientists remain the most trusted sources of news and information about climate change, trusted by 73% on average, and respondents more often see them used as sources in the news media than any other source of information.
• Over three quarters (80%) of survey respondents say they are concerned about climate change misinformation, consistent with data from 2022.
• Once again, respondents think television and online (including social media and messaging apps) are where they see most climate-related misinformation. Politicians, political parties, and governments are frequently mentioned as sources of false and misleading information.
• Nearly two thirds of respondents believe that news media play a significant role in influencing climate change decisions, actions by large businesses, government policies, and public attitudes, with particularly strong beliefs in Brazil, India, and Pakistan.
• There is large variation in how soon respondents think people in their country will face the serious effects of climate change, with significant proportions in every country thinking the consequences are decades away at least. However, people who use climate change news on a weekly basis are considerably more likely to think that people are being affected by climate change now.
• Significant disparities exist in perceptions of the impact of climate change on public health specifically, with those in Global South countries (Brazil, India, Pakistan) generally perceiving larger effects (50% or more) than those in the Global North (UK, USA, France, Germany, Japan).
• Just over half of respondents think that climate change has a larger effect on poorer people (53%) and poorer countries (52%), but there is a considerable partisan disagreement on this in France, the UK, and the USA, with those leaning politically right less likely to agree.
• People are more likely to think that richer countries and more polluting countries should take greater responsibility for reducing climate change, and weekly climate change news users are more likely to hold this view.
• In the UK, USA, Germany and France opinion is roughly evenly split on whether direct action climate protests (e.g. blocking roads, disrupting sporting events) are covered fairly by the news media. But in Germany, the UK, and the USA opinion varies depending on whether people support or oppose the protests.
• People in our survey expressed a high level of interest in various types of climate coverage, including news that discusses latest developments, positive news, and coverage presenting solutions. People did not express a clear preference for the type of solutions journalism they are most interested in.

What do these findings mean? Assessing news in media has become a critical skill in 2024. It is important to align our lives with accurate information about the climate crisis. Rich McKibben is a good source of information. So are Katharine Hayhoe and Al Gore. Knowing the truth about the climate crisis will make us better advocates. It will set us free to create a better world for our progeny.

On Earth Day 2024, we are a distance from achieving our goals. Things are not going as well as we need and it is complicated by reliance on media fraught with misinformation. We can do better.

~ The author helped organize the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 in his home town. He served as chair of the county board of health, and has been advocating and writing on environmental issues all along his journey. He joined Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project in 2013.