Too Cool to Be Green:
Why No One Wants to Read About the Environment

The Shape of Science News to Come: A Graduate Student Perspective

by Justin Nobel

Several days after attending a climate journalism conference at Columbia University, I found myself lying awake in my newfound New York City apartment sweating profusely. It was an early June heat wave, and I had no air conditioning.

"Never got this hot last year," I remembered my super telling me earlier in the day. "Not even in August."

August. At this rate the world would be melted by August; polar ice caps gone, Manhattan under water, palm trees in Alaska.

Of course such rashly drawn portents are by no means valid. But they are, nevertheless, similar to the faulty climactic conclusions people draw every day. Anyone involved with climate science can recall experiences of being seen as an oracle on global warming during times of extreme weather occurrences. A particularly cold January brings snowflakes to Florida, and we are asked, "Hey does this mean there is no more global warming?" Yet a week later, when it is 70 degrees in Ohio, the same folks will remark, "So you guys were right about that global warming thing after all, huh."

As I came to realize at the conference, held 15 miles north of New York City at Columbia's Lamont Observatory, on steep green bluffs that overlook the Hudson River, part of the obstacle in writing about science is how to make a topic that may not necessarily be of primary interest to most readers, interesting –- without sensationalizing it and or diminishing the value of the science being reported. Laments voiced at Lamont made it all too apparent that media outlets are very concerned about profit margins, and thus publishing a story, in a sense, becomes selling an idea.

To sell an idea, you must first pitch your story, and first to your editors. I was surprised to hear from several science journalists that merely the insertion of words like "global warming" or "environment" could be enough to get a story sidelined, or at least severely edited. Simply put, science does not sell newspapers.

When I study at Columbia this fall as a graduate student in the Earth and Environmental Science Journalism program, it will be my first formal academic experience with journalism. Yet I know well the various maxims of the industry: If it bleeds it leads; sex sells; or man bites dog is a story, dog bites man is not.

Science bleeds infrequently, copulates unappealingly, and although people may often bite dogs, the story about it is typically difficult to convey to the public. Science journalists certainly hold interesting leads, but they must compete with other journalists for print space. A look at the cover of any major news magazine or daily paper will let you know what stories are being run.

According to the science journalists at the conference, getting environment-related articles published is as challenging now as ever, if not more so. When Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published 43 years ago, a common tactic was to scare people into environmental advocacy with attention-grabbing prophesizing. This approach worked initially; it got people to pay attention, and in the following two decades many of our nation's most valuable environmental laws were passed and enacted. Yet continued use of sensationalism has hindered the progression of the environmental movement. As some participants at the conference alluded, we are in the midst of an environmental backlash. The fact that 'green' phrases like global warming and environment are being edited out of articles and newscasts seems to be proof of this.

I side with those at the workshop who believe that most people really do have concerns for the natural environment around them. The general public certainly cares about melting glaciers, rising oceans, or mercury contamination.

The feat now involves how to get the message of such complex environmental issues across, without necessarily claiming catastrophe, without over 'greening' pieces and thus turning the public and editors off, and yet without boring people with obscure science that is difficult to convey properly in limited space.

It is now mid- to late summer, and a heat wave continues to roast the Northeast. Is it actually global warming or merely a particularly hot summer?

I don't know. But I know from my participation in this workshop that an extremely devoted and intelligent set of scientists is working to find out, and an equally impressive set of journalists is working to bring this information to the public.

Just the fact that such a varied assortment of professionals are working to address these issues gives me hope.

Justin Nobel will beis a first year student in Columbia's Earth and Environmental Science Journalism program in the fall. He has studied climatology in Bolivia and Peru and most recently held an internship at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Email: justinnobel@hotmail.com