Andy Revkin: How Does Our Collective Failure Make You Feel?

This is article 2 of 8 in the series about interviews with speakers at Cancun's "Forum on Communicating Climate Change." Click here to read the introduction.
Cross posted on Hub Culture.

I spoke with Andy Revkin fairly late in the day. He looked tired and hurried, although he perked up once the camera started rolling. Andy has been one of the U.S.'s top environmental reporters over the past few decades, including a 15-year stint at the New York Times. Although he is no longer a full time employee of the paper, he still blogs there at dotearth.nytimes.com.

I have always enjoyed Andy's columns, but because journalists are not encouraged to share their opinions, I have had no idea how it made him feel that his profession had communicated so poorly. I also wanted to know if he has been surprised by how public opinion has changed over the past two decades. Did it surprise him that public belief in climate science has actually eroded?

In the interview, Andy said that he's not surprised that public opinion on climate science has waned, largely because public opinion on this issue has never run very deep. Other than a small percentage of the population, people don't give climate change much thought or hold their beliefs too strongly. The changes in opinion are, as he says "Waves in a shallow pan."

As for how he felt, Andy expressed muted frustration. He then said that the apparent failure of conventional journalism is one reason that he left the New York Times. He sees the future of communication as being more innovative: using blogs and improved multimedia. He finished by saying that he did not lament the end of 20th century journalism because these new forms of communication forms allow more engagement and feedback.

Next article - Jennifer Scott: A Survey of COP16 participants reveals deep pessimism.

All Articles in Series:

Andy Revkin: You've communicated this issue for 20 years. How does our collective failure make you feel?
Jennifer Scott: A Survey of COP16 participants reveals deep pessimism.
Anthony Leiserowitz: The global diversity of opinion on climate change.
Doug Boucher: How has the Union of Concerned Scientists responded to our failure to communicate climate change?
Eileen Claussen: What is the road forward?
Colin Beavan: How does "No Impact Man" talk about Progress?
Gonzalo Canseco: Why did Mexico choose to host a forum on climate change communication?

 

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Comments

[Overtone]

05:42 PM on 12/10/2010

The temperatur­­e rise predicted during this Conference threatens a tipping point which would likely end most human life. See Ticking Time Bomb by John Atcheson at www.aesopi­­nstitute.­o­rg

A strong wake up call is needed!

Potentiall­­­­­­y destructiv­­­­­­e solar storms occurred in April, September and November. The latter, a huge one, narrowly missed earth. Imagine the impact of widespread­­­­­­, lengthy, blackouts!

Decentrali­­­­­­zed power production is a wise insurance policy - as well as a surprising way for disruptive green technologi­­­­­­es to start to supersede the costly need for imported oil!

Political opposition may be minimal, since such blackouts would clearly be national emergencie­­­­­­s.

A solar storm can cause power system collapse. NASA estimates in the U.S., damage could cause 130 million people to suffer a long-term blackouts. The cost - $1-2 trillion the first year. Roughly the price tag of both the wars in Iraq and Afghanista­­­­­­n!

Supersedin­­­­­­g grid dependency has now become a wise insurance policy for our population and the entire planet. See the Aesop Institute website.

The potential for power outages can be used to stimulate rapid production of potentiall­­­­­­y cost-compe­­­­­­titiv­e­, renewable, energy conversion systems.

Supersedin­­­­­­g oil and all fossil fuels can be accomplish­­­­­­ed very much faster than convention­­­­­­al wisdom (and predictabl­­­­­­e skepticism­­­­­­) would suggest is possible.

Decentrali­­­­­zed, inexpensiv­­­­­e, green energy can rapidly be adopted in all nations, including those still developing­­­­­.

The resulting activity can revive the fragile economy, generate large numbers of jobs, and make it easier for development in poor countries.

[Danny Bloom]

10:27 PM on 12/08/2010

And David, polar Cities have evolved. After four years of flogging them as an
adaptation strategy for future climate chaos in 2500, which merely
scared people off and got me no friends, not even in the MSM or the
blogosphere, I have finally seen the light and revamped the ENTIRE
polar cities meme, and now they are shining gleaming cities in the NEW
NORTH that Lawrence C. Smith at UCLA has made popular now with his
very good book, and these new polar cities of mine are HERE AND NOW,
not in some future time warp, but now, and people can move into them
soon, in a few years in fact, and they are no longer scary or end of
the worldly, but part of the New North meme, where AGW will in fact
make the New North a prosperous place full of Inuits and migrants from
the south who will enjoy longer growing seasons, 24 hours of sunlight
in summer, palm trees sooner or later and all the amenities of the
good life. So see my new press release about the NEW NORTH POLAR
CITIES, guaranteed not to scare anyone in this post-Cancan time.
Onward to Capetown 2011...





As the northern regions of the Earth experience warming temperatures
over the next 100 years and more, millions of people will be migrating
north to the New North to live in \"polar cities\" where they can
enjoy the comforts of their previous homes but in a safe
environment.

[Danny Bloom]

10:19 PM on 12/08/2010

David, thanks for this, Andrew Revkin is one of the best climate reporters out there, in the field, on the ground, he works hard, this is his life's work, not just some beat he covers to make ends meet. He's the real McCoy. Good interview and thanks for posting it. Since you cover climate, you might want to interview me someday about my polar cities project:
http://pcillu101.blogspot
and why I now call myself "James Lovelock's Accidental Student" (google the term)

-- danny ....and I am an optimist, too, like my teacher Dr L

[David Ropeik]

08:49 PM on 12/08/2010

David,
If your assumption is that journalism has not adequately reported the climate story, as a former environmental journalist myself I would agree, though the assumption presumes a model of public education for journalism with which the business reality of journalism conflicts. If you assume that the facts will, if communicated well enough, "succeed, you are overlooking vast amounts of social science research that make clear that our perception of risk is not, and can never be, purely fact-based/rational. It's an affective blend of the facts and a well-defined set of psychological/emotional/instinctive characteristics we use to interpret those facts. Which explains why the same facts can feel so different to so many, and those feelings can change over time. I've filed a number of guest posts at Dot Earth on this.

[David Kroodsma]

09:49 PM on 12/08/2010

David - yes, I agree (and I realize that the earlier version of my title was accusatorial in a way that I didn't mean to be). We need to "tell stories" and appeal to people's emotions... which isn't really the environmental reporter's job. So it is probably entirely unfair. Of course, I just was very curious how someone who covers this for 20 years feels about it...