In a piece of research conducted over the summer, this author looked at the different frames employed in the coverage of UK and international policy processes, such as the UK Climate Change Bill and the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. The full findings of that research are to be published in a book later next year. As a brief overview, the research found was that nearly all reporting of issues, such as Lord Turner’s report, used one of three organising ‘frames’ to emphasize the angle or treatment of the issue. These were:

1. Accepted-positive: That the text or policy was a welcome political development and/or tool to help combat anthropogenic GHG emissions;
2. Rejected-negative: That the text or policy was a negative political development and/or unhelpful tool to help combat anthropogenic GHG emissions;
3. Ambiguous-Use: That the text or policy was of ambiguous and/or uncertain political/GHG emissions control benefit.

This was a useful way of looking at the articles that were published this week. Although only a brief analysis of the press coverage of UK climate policy processes and texts, this post argues that this week’s patterns are indicative of the larger picture of the way in which press partisanship and ideological positions are implicated in the decisions made when covering climate change. This is both the left-wing / right-wing divide, but also along socio-economic and conservative (with a small c) lines. When combined with news values such as the need for drama and entertainment and brevity, this contributes to a complex but important aspect of how climate is covered.

Accepted-positive

The only clear cut acceptance of the report was from Michael McCarthy, writing in the Independent, and from Juliette Jowit and David Adam in the Guardian. McCarthy writes knowingly and wryly, emphasising the harsh but positive realities that “there is more chance of  meeting those targets than there was six months ago”. In the Guardian, Jowit and Adam present a double page spread (next to an ad for Halfords promoting winter driving…) that delivers a harsh and fairly focused report. Adam’s report ends with the caveat that political achievements have not always met their rhetorical positioning. “We must hope,” he ends, “that this time, it does.”

Ambiguous-use

This frame delivers an ambiguous message: is the text/policy/initiative useful or positive, or not? It is often along the lines of “not enough” or “too late” but also “is it politically-motivated?” or “they’re not telling you the whole truth… wait a bit” - which leads to either fatalism or inaction, or both. Writing in the Independent, Emily Beamant has a long piece (online at least) in which the “woeful inadequacy” of the report and government action is flagged up a number of times by her sources, such as Tim Jackson, economics commissioner at the Sustainable Development Commission, who:

warned that the Goverment’s commitment to building a low-carbon Britain was woefully inadequate. “The only appropriate response to both the current economic crisis and the impending crisis of climate change is a comprehensive programme of investment in low-carbon technologies and upgrading Britain’s buildings,” he said.”What we need is a wholehearted political and economic commitment to achieving a sustainable Britain.”

Shadow energy and climate change secretary Greg Clark welcomed the “stretching” targets in the report, but said the Government had a long way to go to meet them.

George Monbiot, with technical detail and an urgency not found in most writers, notes in the Guardian that “Turner’s report - polite, measured and impressive as it is - proposes is more procrastination.” Monbiot consistently contributes his own solutions to the problem, which, when read in the light of say evidence given to the Environmental Audit Committee by people such as Tim Helweg-Larsen of the PIRC, seem perfectly acceptable actions. But if Monbiot’s tone has already framed the report from Turner as “futile”, will readers turn off after this? Possibly. But then not all commentators think Monbiot’s solutions are right either, particularly Tim Worstall criticizing Monbiot for getting his economics muddled up.

The strangest headline was from the Times, over Lewis Smtih’s article: Electric cars with bells to steer 2020 emissions targets. This headline framing of what is actually a very positive, clear and responsible article is a strange decision. I very much like and admire Lewis, personally as well as professionally in the minimal dealings I’ve had with him, but this type of headline framing is not uncommon from the Times. It hints at a trivialising of the issue that is not apparent in the article itself. It is not the web headline, either: ‘Government set tough new target for cutting carbon emissions by 2020′.

Critical-Rejected

And then there are the stories that put a headline focus on the cost to homes and families by surging energy bills, and which quote known sceptics rather than the raft of scientists, campaign groups, politicians and (dare we suggest it) normal people who are witnessing climate change, to respond to the report.

In the Daily Mail, environment correspondent David Derbyshire focuses on the ‘£500 per home to fight climate change’ tapping into what Brian McNair calls the ‘middle-England (as opposed to middle-Britain’ target audience for the Mail (McNair, 2000). Derbyshire goes on to quote Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist (for analysis of this book, look at Spiked-Online and Grist) who is quoted as saying:

‘The price tag by the committee’s own estimate could reach £14billion annually but the effect would be minuscule. Climate models show that the impact up to 2030 would mean the UK would help reduce the global temperature increase by about one three thousandth of a degree Celsius by the end of the century.

‘An economic analysis would indicate that the UK, for every pound spent, would only do about 4p worth of good for the climate. By any standard, this appears to be a gigantic waste.’

Of course, some critics think the Mail should go further, and tell the ‘truth’ that there “is no man made climage change!” However, Derbyshre and the Mail are not alone in their framing of the article in this way–on the cost now to individuals, rather than to all costs, to all societies–as this is also the headline and frame found in Fiona Harvey’s report in the FT (Fiona was just commended as 2nd prize for environmental journalist of the year by the Press Gazette) and by Louise Gray in the Telegraph.

And the absent…

As academic Anabela Carvalho argues, what is absent says as much of the ideological practices of newspapers as what is present (Carvalho, 2005:12). The story was not covered on Monday or Tuesday (as far as I can tell) in the largest circulation newspaper, The Sun, nor in the other red-top The Star, nor in the black-top Express.

So what does it mean?

It means that readers of two of the top five newspapers, by circulation (Sun, Express) knew nothing about the report or its consequences from reading their paper. They could get the news from elsewhere, but not from their daily press. This is very much in line with Futerra’s 2006 report, Climate of Hope, which showed that:

Most newspaper readers are seeing very few stories about climate change. The vast majority (76%) of UK national newspaper readers purchase tabloids and middle market newspapers, and see only 16% of the stories concerning climate change.

Here’s some more from Futerra on media coverage of climate change policy.

It also means that readers of the 2nd and 4th most popular papers were reading negative messages about the impact of the government report–it will only lead to increased energy bills. Neither the Daily Mail nor the Telegraph gave enough emphasis to the urgency or necessity of these proposals in light of the latest scientific understanding of climate change and the need to act. This ‘framing’ of every goverment policy development as negative for ‘the public’ is an unsatisfying method for approaching responsible media reporting on the climate.

It also means that reporting is very complex, often contradictory within the same newspaper (the Independent has a particular track record in this), and that reporting is generally organised along ideological and partisan lines: the left-learning papers provide most coverage; the right-leaning papers do provide coverage, but often cannot disconnect necessary policy changes from their need to attack the government that will be implementing them. Would it be the other way round if the Conservatives were in power?

In detail

These were the headlines of articles published on Monday/Tuesday this week:

The Guardian (circulation 354,272)

• Long, detailed, impressive - but futile in the face of runaway climate change
• Don’t wait for the planet to go up in smoke
• UK climate watchdog urges dramatic emission cuts
• Editorial: End of the Party
• The scary reality buried in Adair Turner’s report

The Independent (circulation 201,019)

• 12 years to halve UK CO2
• Comment: The first test for the other Miliband
• UK emissions must be cut by a third

The Telegraph (circulation 843,196)

• We need 80% cuts’ (published a few days earlier)
• UK climate change targets will push up fuel bills, warns Government advisor
• Motorists must go green to meet climate targets

Financial Times (circulation 451,676)

• Climate taskforce urges tough targets
• Climate pledges to hit UK energy bills

The Times (circulation 629,561)

• Electric cars with bells to steer 2020 emissions targets (headline different online)

Daily Mail (circulation 2,261,423)

• £500 per home to fight climate change

Daily Mirror (circulation 1,425,287)

• Fuel bill rise to go green (headline different and article longer online)

The Sun (circ. 3,140,928), The Express (circ. 723,958) and The Star (circ. 688,582) no coverage. Which is a shame, because the report, all 467 pages of it, can be downloaded here: ‘Building a Low Carbon Economy - the UK’s contribution to tackling climate change’

References
Carvalho, A., 2005. Representing the Politics of the Greenhouse Effect: Discursive strategies in the British Media. Critical Discourse Studies, 2(1), pp.1-29.
McNair, B. 2000. Journalism and Democracy. London: Routledge.

(x-posted at The Current Climate)

Most importantly, the special commendation for Newcastle’s Evening Chronicle and it’s Go Green initiatives over the course of a year. The relationship between regional living, local media and environmental sustainability may be one of circumstance as much as anything, but initiatives such as the Transition Town movement over here and the Locavores in the US provide a hint that regional media can both survive the industry downturn and develop ecological living patterns through such environmentally-focused editorial. The Chronicle are running their own awards for local environmental champions.

Scoring a couple of half-points for nearly right decisions, the judges (BBC Newsnight’s Justin Rowlatt, former Gloucestershire Echo editor Anita Syvret, Co-op Environment manager Chris Shearlock, Greenpeace communications director Ben Stewart and Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford) also gave a highly commended certificate to Fiona Harvey of the Financial Times and to The Independent’s Johann Hari for Story of the Year: The Cruel Sea, his investigation into the possible effects of climate change on Bangladesh.

Only half right, because

a) Fiona is a much better journalist than the winner, Richard Girling of the Sunday Times Magazine.

Of Girling, the judges said this:

“He argues complex issues with clarity, an unassailable knowledge of his subject, intelligence, and humour, offering all sides of the debate without preaching. His writing style is captivating, keeping even the most hardened eco-sceptic turning the pages through more than 2,000 words.”

So, did the judges read the article? I read it when it was first published, how eco-towns will be the ’slums of the future’, and I just re-read it this morning, and it has left me considering what exact definition the judges used to define the term ‘environmental journalism” - definitions are always a problem.

Girling is a clever, subtle, intelligent and notable writer–even captivating. I don’t often read the Sunday Times, but I read this article. But environmental…? What does that mean. His writing is no doubt conservative, with a small c, but the tone and tenor of this article, to which the judges refer, is one of scathing poltiical failure on behalf of the government–it is almost secondary that it is about the environment at all. “His writing style is captivating, keeping even the most hardened eco-sceptic turning the pages.” Not a surprise, really, when the article is so clearly set out to play to eco-sceptic viewpoints, e.g.:

All this reinforces the obvious argument that the only genuine eco-communities are the existing towns and cities, which have infrastructure already in place, and that the most sustainable form of development, exemplified around Cambridge, is the “densification” of the urban fringe.

Really? So what about the Transition Town initiative then? What about looking beyond the ‘obvious’ to reinvigorate potential forms of living that we don’t as yet enjoy. Again, no surprise Girling’s article is picked up and amplified by a number of right wing sites. But more relevant, the eco-town story has been picked up and rubbished everywhere, from the Guardian to Student Beans. Where was the eco-town article that revolutionised the idea and reported what it should or could be? How about Sarah Lewis’s article on Transition Towns in the Guardian?

Girling’s article is eloquent and no doubt factual, but the issue of eco-towns should at least offer a writer the opportunity to envision some future, rather than simply criticising the present. This would be ‘environmental journalism’ as I would like it defined.

And b) because Johann Hari is good…

But nowhere near contributing to the dialogue of environmental action as much as Mainstream Media (MSM) writers such as Rob Edwards of the Sunday Herald, George Monbiot of the Guardian, or Mark Lynas in the New Statesman, or even Girling’s colleague Lewis Smith, of the Times, or Hari’s own colleague Michael McCarthy.

And that raises the point as well: what about the environmental awards for the non-MSM? The bloggers and media watchers who are, most probably, contributing more to a realistic dialogue over climate change and environmental issues. The last two alerts from Media Lens are essential reading, and you could pick many from their archive that would vie for story of the year, such as their Notes from a Dying Planet.

And if you’re talking non-MSM, how about Shaun Milne’s new zero carbon magazine, Eco4You, or Environmental Graffiti, or Treehugger, or The Ecologist, all of which deliver news, and can be considered part of the ‘press’.

But the coup de grace is…

In a result that would compare with Boris Johnson winning GQ’s Man of the Year for his “undisputed elan”, the Press Gazette has forever sullied the future of its environmental awards by picking the Daily Mail’s “Ban the Bags” initiative as its campaign of the year. Well, I say ‘their’ initiative, although as I wrote in an earlier piece for Journalism.co.uk, yes it’s theirs if you consider co-opting an already successful and growing campaign as proof of ownership.

This is what the judges said about the Mail:

“This campaign was executed brilliantly, the editor got behind and they were brave enough to put it on the front page consistently. The objectives were simple and achievable.”

Brave? What I’d like the judges to explain is how running a handful of stories about plastic bags in 2008–the world is overheating, people–long after the much broader, grass-roots campaign for banning plastic bags was already underway. Let’s look at some of the coverage that the Daily Mail (and Mail on Sunday) has given to environmental issues over the past five years:

Between Jan 2004 and July 2008, the Daily Mail ran five (yes, five) stories about the Kyoto Protocol. Compare this to The Guardian over the same period (227), The Independent (174) or even The Sun (18). And of those five, how many were positive that the Protocol was, as flawed as we all know it to be, contributing in some way to helping combat climate change? One. One article in 43 months.

Now, from January 2006 through to July 2008, how many stories did the Daily Mail run about the Climate Change Bill? 45. Big improvement, even if small compared to The Guardian (145) or even the Times (68). Until you recognise that the DM’s coverage of this world-leading (yes, flawed, but still hugely important) piece of legislation was mostly dominated by it’s ‘Great Bin Revolt’ campaign that rejected the Climate Change Bill with barely a mention of the threats of climate change. Far more important was the potential £100 extra charge for over-polluters in middle-England. Of those 45 articles, 31 (that’s 70%) outright rejected or cast the Bill in an ambiguous light. These stories were running at the same time as the Mail’s ‘ban the bags’ campaign which, as noted elsewhere, it co-opted from The Marine Conservation Society.

Brave?

That’s a question for one of the judges in particular. Ben Stewart, communications director for Greenpeace, who was recently one of the six defendents who used climate change as a defence against public damage at the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station towers. I met Ben seven or eight years ago. He was just off for a six-month stint on the Greenpeace flotilla. Ben is brave, dealing with the ire of heavyweights such as Ian Dale and The Devil’s Kitchen. But nowhere near as brave, if that’s even the right word, as the Bangladeshi people that Johann Hari writes about.

And by brave, of course, the judges mean ‘economically’ brave to put it on their front page consistently… That is, to suffer lower sales. Sterling effort, DM.

Journalism doesn’t have to be jingoistic

What about giving the award to the Sunday Herald in Scotland, who worked with the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition to put positive and constructive pressure on the parliament to pass the bill in its strongest form. There were many constructively critical articles written over the same 2006-8 period, but NONE that rejected the need for a climate bill.

The Daily Mail? Brave? Brave to devote its front-page to a populist campaign with momentum? As I’ve already writren, as environmental group Friends of the Earth have been quick to point out, in the context of climate change and biodiversity threats, plastic bags account for only 0.3 per cent of domestic waste and are not a top priority.

No. As commendable as a new set of environmental awards are, paricularly in this hard time for journalism, where it seems every over question is about whether or not environmental principles will survive the credit crisis, and the other half of questions are about the next round of job losses… commendable as it is, the judges got this one very, very wrong.

(x-posted from The Current Climate)

James Hansen, NASA scientist, is in Westminster today to give evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee on the impact of current science on climate policy. It’s being billed by new group Climate Safety as “one humdinger of a debate” between, in the red corner, Hansen and researcher Tim Helweg-Larsen of the Public Interest Research Centre, as they go head-to-head with, in the blue corner, Professor John Beddington and Professor Robert Watson, both Chief Scientific Advisers to the UK Government. You can watch it live at 2.30pm on Parliament TV.

Hansen has had a busy week in the news and on the blogs, particularly for his letter to Obama. It’s been critiqued as alarmist on a number of skeptic blogs, such as SkepticsGlobalWarming and CO2Sceptic, but not only from the sceptical side of the debate. Joe Romm of Climate Progress also critiques Hansen, and splits from his conclusion that are firmly behind the 350.org call for change (he’s one of their identified ‘messengers’:

The conclusion – at first startling but in retrospect obvious – is that the human-made increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), from the pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to today’s 385 ppm, has already raised the CO2 amount into the dangerous range. It will be necessary to take actions that return CO2 to a level of at most 350 ppm, but probably less, if we are to avert disastrous pressures on fellow species and large sea level rise.

The debate is being billed as a “humdinger” as much for Hansen’s reputation as for the science. He’s the vanguard of outspoken criticism of inaction on climate change–although he’s often misrepresented, for example in his supposed call for sceptics to be thrown in jail. CEOs of oil companies knowingly peddling disinformation and uncertainty where there is proof, yes; ordinary everyday sceptics, no.

Hansen’s appearance shouldn’t overshadow that of the other participants, either:

Tim Helweg-Larsen is director of the Public Interest Research Centre and publisher of the Zero Carbon Britain report.

Professor John Beddingtonhas an academic background in environmental technology at Imperial College, London, and has been adviser to the government for a number of years.

Professor Robert Watson is chief adviser to DEFRA, and part of the Tyndall Centre. He has also played a role as chair of the IPCC between 1997 and 2002.

(x-posted at The Current Climate)

Early skirmishes between the Comms team and the great unwashed (it is 6am) remind me something of either a manicured garden or Capoeira - well managed and quite elegant to look at or watch, in its own way. If Bjorn and his team are not at present reclining in Lazy Boys in reality, metaphorically it seems they are. Perhaps that is the nature of self-selection for those who would be taking part in such a web chat.

The most interesting Q/A so far (6.32am) is this:

Question from C.Foretti translated from Italian: Is there any evidence that the value of energy companies is significantly influenced (positively or negatively) by their choices re sustainability? If one could somehow verify that this is the case, then it would be possible to reassess the energy efficiency activities, in order to supplement profitability with greater sustainability

Speaker: Alger Steenhuis, Investor Relations: There have been multiple academic research studies to explore the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors (or sustainability) and the share price performance of companies - overall the overwhelming majority of the studies point to either a neutral or positive relationship over time. In the last few years, the financial markets have been increasingly focusing on how companies approach ESG for amongst others risk assessment purposes. For energy companies specifically, Goldman Sachs for example has published an advanced approach showcasing the relationship of ESG and the expected performance of energy companies. At Shell our approach to sustainability is an integrated part of our strategy and we believe it helps us to manage and reduce risks, helps us to earn our licence to operate and grow, develop the right products and maximise business opportunities. Our energy efficiency programme is a good example of how our approach can actually reduce costs; our energy efficiency initiatives in our downstream operations have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by some 1.7 million tonnes per year, saving us some $180 million. We are now putting energy management systems in place for more than 50 of our major assets in the upstream.

Much of the rest of the debate, effectively polite, is centred around the things you could easily read (at, say, 8.30am, over a Danish (pardon me, Bjorn)) from their Sustainability Report. It is quite interesting to read that their ‘peer reviewers’ comments are published in the back of that document.

Aha, success. My pre-submitted question, which is not particularly insightful, but something I was curious about anyway, has just been answered:

A question from alexlockwood: There are many different sources for guidance and development of messaging that Shell could draw on for best practice in sustainability communications, including its own staff and historical practices, but also academic disciplines such as media communications, psychology, and even philosophy. Can I ask where and how Shell engages with critical thinking around its communications, and what criteria it uses for assessing its messaging once it is ready to enter the public domain?

Speaker: Andrew Eddy, Head of Comms, UK: Alex - thank you for your question. We have relationships with various Academic Institutions which have an array of critical thinkers in the Communications space. Right now for example some of my colleagues are at Henley Business School in the UK attending a special program about Communication and Reputation. We also have close relations with Duke University, North Carolina, George Washington University in Washington DC and IMD Lausanne Switzerland amongst others. Before finalising our messaging we review the content in the context of our Shell Brand values. We aspire to build our Brand to be about our technology, our portfolio and our people. And our communications are developed to reflect these attributes.

A bit of a selfish one that. While at the Crisis Forum workshop last Friday, Rob Johnson, Professor in History from the University of Bath, was emphatic in the need to work from within organisations and government (within the institutions of 21st century power) to affect change. While on the train with my good friend D, she was also exhorting me to go for a drink with an old University acquaintance who now works for Shell. Know their mind, she said.

It is welcome that Shell enacts such web dialogues, although they are themselves instances of the relational power that such a large corporation has. They are also caught in the mirror stage, reflecting back only what they aspire to in their Brand. Interestingly, a search on Shell’s brand values only returns results with a % attached. That’s only a singe bottom line.

But the most recent question (6.42am) makes me think of Communications work not, as Bjorn describes it, as “making things real and relevant to those with a stake in the matter at hand.” This is prescriptive to both its intended aims and limited results. Rather, communications work has a much broader role in playing what Foucault has often called a “truth game”. It is not to see what is “real” or “relevant” and only to those with a “stake in the matter at hand”. Rather, what effect does such communication have on our relation to truth. In other words, what ‘truth’ are they trying to have us believe is “real and relevant” and, even more crucially, to limit in fact who “has a stake” in the matter.

Take this next (pre-submitted) question:

Warren: Many people are now speaking the language of the three hard truths - some ads for other oil companies have “borrowed” our terms - they too speak of the end of easy oil and hard truths of the energy challenge…that’s flattering. but also begs question of how do we differentiate ourselves?

Speaker, Alexandra Wright, UK Communications: Hello Warren, The Three Hard Truths (demand for energy is growing rapidly; it is getting harder for supply of easily accessible oil and gas to keep up with demand; and CO2 emissions are set to rise, as concerns about climate change grow) are a reality and we are encouraged that others recognize this too.

Our differentiation comes from how we tackle the challenges associated with these Hard Truths. We believe Shell is unique by being positive about energy and how energy can help the world achieve a responsible energy future.

We also believe that by having responsible and creative people, supported by the best possible technology and ideas, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors. This is what we aim to communicate.

What are these capitalisations of Hard Truths? And why are there only Three? Do they correlate with the “Three Dimensional Risk Environment” in which, asks CA Steward, Shell views “Sustainability” as an issue related more to the Compliance or Reputation risk…? Or, taking a lead from Zahi, are these Three Hard Truths (correlating perhaps to the Three Wise Men/Monkeys) a representation of the “FRS (Full-Range-Sustainability)” model of communication that should have “better effects on Society, Environment and Economy [and] have a higher ROI than a classical product performance communication”?

Whose truth is it, anyway?

Look again at what Warren is saying:

…Many people are now speaking the language of the three hard truths…

…some ads for other oil companies have “borrowed” our terms…

…they too speak of the end of easy oil and hard truths of the energy challenge…

…that’s flattering. but also begs question of how do we differentiate ourselves…

The Three Hard Truths are a corporate global message of Shell activity, as evidenced in its capillaration through the media communications landscape–that is, Bjorn and his team have been pretty successful in placing the THT meesage. A speech by Rob Routs at Cornell University. Picked up by US News. And an editorial from Jeroen van der Veer (CE of Royal Dutch Shell) in the Times.

Shell have done extremely well if “the language of the three hard truths” (black mark, Warren, they Should Be Capitalised) is being disseminated through the media-communications-complex. That means, of course, that other truths are not getting ‘out’. As Willy de Backer says, Shell have forgotten a few. And that is the point, at least for students of language and power.

It is worth reflecting on Shell’s Three Hard Truths in light of Foucault’s constellation of ‘propositions’ of truth:

‘Truth’ is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation, and operations of statements.

‘Truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power that produce and sustain it, and to effects of powert which it induces and which extend it–a ‘regime’ of truth.

This regime is not merely ideological or superstructural; it was a condition of the formation and development of capitalism…

The problem is not changing people’s consciousness–or what’s in their heads–but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth. It’s not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time.

That is, it is not a matter of criticising Shell for operating with ’sustainabiity communications’ as its method of making ‘real and relevant’ its operations. Rather, it is of unpicking what Shell enforces as ‘real’ and what truths, by logical extension, are not ‘real and relevant’, those that remain hidden, that are outside of the ‘three’ which it includes in its ‘regime’ at the expense of others, and as such, examining its own relations the power of truth. These Three Truths are a formation of the regime of capitalist truth power production that, while accepting and communicating and enforcing three truths, expel and reject others. This is not just about ‘greenwash’ but about the conditions for capitalism.

And later, Warren’s reply to Alexandra’s reply:

Hi Alexandra. Thanks for the reply… I agree, its our people, their attitudes and mindsets, and our values, that will differentiate us…but that’s a harder challenge to communicate than more technical information about sustainability. Although our recent campaigns, like Say no to no, have done a good job in doing so, in my view… I think direct engagements are also very helpful in this kind of communications and advocacy. People tend to believe you more if they can engage/question you, I find.

Thanks Warren, you’ve summed up why Shell (and I assume Warren is an employee, taking of ‘our people’) would engage in such a web dialogue in the first place.

And double success. Two questions answered:

alexlockwood: If there were time, would Bjorn be able to expand on what he believes is “the real issue we’re trying to address” as he states it in his question below. That is, everything so far is pretty straightforward, but that doesn’t sound to me like the world that either Shell is operating in, or we are living in. What about credit, peak oil, addressing 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. Is it possible?

Speaker, Björn: Hi Alex - It can be all and any of that. I was referring to how to communicate - looking at a concrete issue (credit, peak oil, reductions in emissions, energy frameworks, etc) and going through it from all angles. As to your question about reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050, that is a matter of public policy, political will and the willingness of people to change their life style. Do I think it is a realistic goal, and likely to be achieved? I don’t know, is the answer. It would mean a major shift in society’s priorities. Do you think it is possible? For us, the challenge is that whatever governments decide, to continue to supply the energy the world needs.

My response to this was: “thanks Bjorn for your answer, appreciated. 80% by 2050 is not only possible, it is necessary, and more importantly it is the manner - the emissions pathway - that we choose to get there that is even more relevant. I’m sure you know Kevin Anderson’s work on this, from the Tyndall Centre.”

Last Word

My favourite unintended comment of the web chat is from Bjorn: “I wonder whether we need to broaden the definition. I think, in fact, we need to make sustainability more concrete.” In fact, concrete is the last thing we need.

Seriously though, for any Communications Professional to declare that any term, word, definition, can be “fixed” implies, at the philosophical level at least, there is a failure to grasp language’s resistance to fixed and ‘concrete’ meanings. Or, to look at the embedded, perhaps unconscious truth that is part of Bjorn’s regime, because it is certainly understood that truth = power in many parts of the world today, that it is recognised that a fixed language means control. If one can control it. Everything Kafka wrote was about this.

This is not only in the form of a Language of Resistance, but that is one logical manifestation. Language would resist this use if it were to become absolutist and inflexible. The value and force of language comes exactly in its resistance to such forms of power and abuse of such power from anywhere on the political spectrum. Deconstruction is perhaps the least inadequate explanation of this behaviour of language. To have one single definition of sustainabiity–so whose would it be? Shell’s? Concrete does for words as much as it does for paradise. Just ask Joni Mitchell.

Full transcipt: shell-webchat.

(x-posted at The Current Climate)

Bleak, but necessary

The workshop was a fantastic, if bleak, reinvigoration of the necessity to act. The latest presentation from Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research made it absolutely clear that, globally, we have spent our emissions budget. Kevin was self-professed as a ‘bean counter’, a mechanical engineer who refocused the forum firmly on the counting of cumulative emissions, not some distant, 2050, reductions target. As Kevin made it clear, the final reduction target is not necessarily important–it’s the emissions pathways (PPT) to get there that is critical for any mitigation of the current temperature rises. Mitigate for 2C, but adapt for 4C.

This message was backed up not only by other academics and campaigners, but also news from the military think tanks such as the Advanced Concepts Group; and other research bodies, such as the Oxford Research Group.

This, of course, was also at the optimistic end of the wedge. Add in the positive feedback loops, eloquently explained by David Wasdell from the Meridian Programme, and the bean counting looks even bleaker still.

The glummest looking person in the room? Probably, I thought, the person from the parliamentary Environment Audit Committee. Today representatives from the Tyndall Centre presented to the EAC on ways to both count and reduce emissions from shipping.

Surviving Climate Change - Home and Abroad?

Perhaps the clearest single message from the workshop–and from reading the book from the same group, Surviving Climate Change, on the train on the way down–was this: that what is described as the worst case scenario of societal breakdown, of a walled-in Police State Britain suffering from food and energy shocks, is simply what is already happening in many parts of the world.

Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, brought our attention to Heritage Park, the new South African homestead for 6,000 people totally surrounded by an electrified perimeter and with its own security force.

As the front page of their website says:

The town, like any other, will have schools, shops, offices, places of worship, parks and houses. The difference is that the whole town will be secured by an electrified perimeter fence monitored by the town’s own security force. The concept of whole town fortification has been with us since medieval times and it seems appropriate to take a leaf out of our past and install it into a safe future.

There appear ’saving graces’ to the ‘township’ — the outreach programme that trains black neighbours as bricklayers, builders etc (and then, of course, keeps them locked out). The outreach programme is part of the security plan. As the Guardian notes, by offering work it is “by extension a reason not to storm the citadel”:

“Unless these people have jobs we will still have crime problems. We are training them to be bricklayers, carpenters and painters so that they can take work here when the next development starts,” says developer George Hazelden.

Market Failure

This is the outcome of food, jobs and opportunity shocks, and, within the black communities themselves, of large numbers of migrants coming into South Africa from the rest of the continent. The situation in South Africa has its roots in social injustice–apartheid–and economic inequality. But if the symptoms are the same for climate change, will the outcomes be the same? Well, what about the little-known Indian barrier project, to fence off Bangladesh?

Not too long ago I spoke to Tom Standage, Business Editor at the Economist, about climate change and political global responses. We were talking about whether or not there were alternative models to capitalism, or at least runaway capitalism, which could perhaps now be reined in a little since the credit crunch. Tom, understandably, was critical of those who simply blamed business for climate change, and were unwilling to see business and capital as a way out of the problem. He said:

And all of this can be painted in a bad way, you know, big business only in it for the money, or it can be painted in a good way, that businesses can harness profit from this, and that regulation is going to bring that in and really sort out the problem. People who object to this, those who see it as a problem of capitalism and consumerism, they’re looking at solutions that will take us back to the middle ages, and that’s not an option. Not an option. We need to look at solving this in the least bad way possible.

“Solutions that will take us back to the middle ages”… “The concept of whole town fortification has been with us since medieval times”… In other parts of the world, that is exactly what developers, councillors on planning committees, publics, and investment banks, are looking to do, and readily admitting it.

Are ‘we’ heading towards a Children of Men scenario–a walled in Britain, where class divides (which are “rubbish” according to the Queen’s fifth cousin, David Cameron) lead to economic and ecological apartheid?

This element of thinking always sticks in my throat, in both ways.

First, because it is a hopeless way to think–literally, empty of hope, and something that Professor Rogers in particular steered the group away from. But second, because it became abundantly clear at the Crisis Forum meeting that ‘our’ thinking–those who believe that an alternative to the current system of capital “is not an option”–remain optimistic that, even if the worst case scenario does play out, that, we here won’t “take the hit.”

This isn’t even relevant, for two reasons. One, those most at risk from climate change are not the countries or populations who caused it, but the poorest. Second, the globalised nature of our world now means that no-one will be spared ‘the hit’.

The market won’t let it happen…? Then why is climate change, in the words of Tom Standage, echoing Nicholas Stern “the biggest market failure the world has ever seen”?

As in the words of Aubrey Meyer of the GCI, the proponent of Contraction and Convergence (C&C), anyone who still believes that either it isn’t happening, or that the market will get us out, is talking “bullshit”.

Road to Copenhagen

At the end of this month, on November 30th, the 15th UN Climate Conference begins in Poznan, Poland, to lay down the final draft for negotiations of the policy, treaty, legislation, call it what you will, that will replace Kyoto in 2013. The Crisis Forum itself, as a position, is organised around the C&C argument as a simple, elegant and necessarily equitable way of organising global greenhouse gas emissions to commit the world to a drastically reduced carbon future. That is not to say every ‘member’ endorses or promotes it–the forum is not a membership group.

But still without viable alternatives–politically acceptable alternatives that are rigorous and drastic enough, unlike most cap-and-trade systems–the outlook for mitigating to a minimum 2 degrees C temperature rise looks bleak. Of course, temperature is not the key: the temperature we are experiencing now is due to the actions of those people–our parents and grandparents–40-60 years ago. The radiative forcing that we contribute to the atmopshere now will only be apparent in another 40-60 years. Well beyond the terms of office of some, and of the lifespan of others. Even looking ahead to Copenhagen is too long to wait.

(x-posted at AlexLockwood.net)

Here’s what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

A couple of U.S. bloggers, notably Skeptics Global Warming, annotated the editorial with their own opinion as rebuttal.  For example, to the above:

Who will pay for it?  The taxpayer?  With oil prices having dropped by more than half over the last several months, I’d hardly call carbon-based fuels “expensive” any longer.

Not quite the point Gore was trying to make, I think, but representative of a great swathe of America, still. It also smacks of the blinkered nature of much of the Western sceptic position: that civilisation means ‘us’ rather than those already at the sharp-end of anthropogenic climate change effects.

Over here, Tim Worstall called Gore’s plans ‘barking’:

We couldn’t even get to the point that all new plant built in a decade was renewable only, let alone make ourselves immeasurably poorer by tearing down the energy production sector that we already have. It’s not just that we don’t want to do this incredibly stupid thing it’s that there’s no possible way that we could.

Which sounds about right to me: 100% renewable energy in a decade is far-sighted. Tim’s regular readers and commenters certainly agree. But again, this is perhaps missing the strategy. For every pendulum to swing in a particular way, there will always be those who choose to set their targets at the extremities rather than in line what seems possible, as a means to engender a greater shift further than that great euphemism, the ‘politically acceptable’.

For others, what Gore is calling for is just about right, and for Climate Progress, specific and clear in its call to action. At the least, a call for 21st century technologies to replace carbon-intensive 19th century technologies appears a sane one.

Gore was directing his editorial, and the speeches that followed, particularly at the Web2.0 conference (see The Other Gore Speech), firmly at one man: Barack Obama. Obama has promised $150b for renewables. Gore no doubt will maintain the pressure to hold him to that promise. Alex Steffen at World Changing asks his readers to do the same.

(x-posted at The Current Climate)

It’s a curious thing for someone already so well known, well positioned, to do (hence the exclamation marks from Wattsupwiththat). It is also not that sophisticated as a portfolio site.

Perhaps the process of leading the IPCC through tortuous negotiations processes around the text of each IPCC report has been so painful that Pachauri feels the need to communicate without so many restrictions. If Pachauri thinks opening up a blog is anything of a nicer experience, he might want to think again.

The latest blog post from Nov 5 looks at President-elect Obama’s positioning on climate change. As chair of the IPCC, Pachauri’s views are worth accounting for:

The US now has a unique opportunity to assume leadership in meeting the threat of climate change, and it would help greatly if the new President were to announce a coherent and forward looking policy soon after he takes office. There is every reason to believe that President Obama will actually do so.

Carefully chosen and political words, although not the most inspiring that have been written in the past week since Obama’s victory on the subject of the U.S. and climate change. Here are a select few:

Letter from Todd Carmichael as he attempts to walk solo to Antarctica
“All kidding aside, I cast my ballot for Obama/Biden in advance and did all the fundraising I could in my hometown of Philadelphia before leaving for the seventh continent. Your progressive stance on fighting global warming and your bold vision for our renewable energy future made my decision pretty easy. But the main reason I voted for you is because of the effects of climate change I’ve witnessed first-hand here in Antarctica.”

Guardian’s / Grist’s Kate Sheppard on Obama’s Energy Promises
“If the next administration is serious about addressing global warming - and Barack Obama has promised he is, laying out a comprehensive plan on the subject - it’s likely that the first big environmental actions will never be called “environmental” at all. Instead, success in environmental concerns will come through addressing economic concerns.”

Bill McKibben on Obama’s Big Climate Challenge
“While both FDR and Obama had financial meltdowns to deal with, Obama also faces the meltdown meltdown — the rapid disintegration of the planet’s climate system that threatens to challenge the very foundations of our civilization.”

DeSmog’s Kevin Grandia on Canada and Obama
“That leaves only Canada playing the part of selfish oil sheik in a threatened world. We can only hope that Obama’s leadership forces the Canadian government to recognize that it, too, has a responsibility to join the international effort to address climate change - in good faith and in our lifetime.”

Reenita Malhotra writing on Green Options about the environmental-Emmanuel
“As Jennifer Lance mentioned in her post this week on Red, Green and Blue, last Tuesday was a win not only for Barack Obama but also for the environment. Hours after being elected the new President of the United States, Obama has already selected fellow Illinois Democrat, Rahm Emanuel, a strong supporter of the environment, to be his Chief of Staff.”

World Changing: Obama puts wind back in green sails
Solve Climate: Heal the world and save the planet
SEJ: Enviros laud Obama
World Changing: Obama, the post-environmental President
NYT: So little time, so much damage
Greenpeace: Relieved it’s Obama
Grist: Obama On!
Polizeros: Obama, the net, and climate change

And some useful links:

• Knight Science round-up on Obama climate coverage
• Guardian on Obama’s voting record on environment in Congress
• In case you forgot, Bush’s 7 Deadly Environmental Sins

Davies successfully shows how a ‘non-story’ fed itself, both politically and in the press, until it was a major moral panic that costs millions (and made some people millions), and took up a huge amount of column inches in newspapers and magazines worldwide. And at one minute past midnight on Jan 1, 2000… nothing happened. It was a fake story, blown up out of nothing. But that didn’t stop most major news outlets and governments acting as if it was real: check out this retro BBC map of ‘millenniun bug’ infected countries. For an even better BBC entry on the bug, the h2g2 website got it absolutely right…

Now climate change is being likened to the Y2k ’scam’ — a fake story. Or more precisely, a story with a real but insignificant meaning for a global community.

Ian Plimer, a professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, in a speech on climate change, labelled the Australian Federal Government’s plans for an emissions trading scheme to the Y2K scam:

”If you thought Y2K was a scam, you wait for this one,” he told a Sydney Mining Club lunch yesterday.

A message the mining industry may be happy to hear, perhaps. Happily coincidental for the opening theme of this blog post, Professor Pilmer has also been tagged as No.86 out of 100 of the ‘Flat Earth Society’ on the Weather Underground blog.

As Luis from Perth points out in a comment post on another article quoting Professor Pilmer, “he’s a geologist, not a climatologist.” That doesn’t necessarily mean he does not have a right to investigate and debate climate issues. However, it does mean his views should be held in the context of his expertise, and his trade associations with mining companies. (For more information on Pimer at the University of Adelaide.)

The story has been picked up by the CO2Sceptics clearing house and the Australian Climate Madness blog. Both agree with Pilmer, especially his suggestion that the ’science follows politics’. He’s also a regular source for Jennifer Marohasy and Andrew Bolt.

In what looks like an unrelated occurrence of the same theme, the Lake Michigan Air and Waste Management Association(.pdf) use the same metaphor/language to describe climate change (again courtesy of CO2Sceptics.)

Al Gore gathered $300 million to share the ‘truth” of man-induced climate change. He now warns of irreversible damage to the earth if dramatic action isn’t taken before 2020. These echo the overwrought Y2K panacea which cost billions, but vanished overnight. Main stream media report little at odds with the theory. Millions of research dollars hinge on tacit acceptance of the theory. Skeptics with the temerity to question the theory may expect ad hominem attacks. But recent years have seen a sharp increase in the release of scientific facts and testimonies questioning the theory of man-induced climate change…

Use of the ‘millennium bug’ metaphor for communicating the ’scam’ of climate change is a powerful choice of language: it’s easily explainable, and can be referred back to a real, momentous and memorable anti-climax: we all remember nothing happening as a result of the moral panic/scare. That’s a powerful image with which to encourage a thought about the current understanding of climate change. Those critical of the mass support and evolving action to mitigate against and adapt to climate change could adopt the form of this metaphor–the anti-climax–as a better means of communicating the economic-foolhardy repertoire of ideas that reach their polished zenith in Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus.

What really interests me is that the likeness seems to have occurred independently at around the same time thousands of miles apart: it would be fascinating to see if there were linkages between the people or groups involved.

(x-posted from The Current Climate)

Cleverer children are more likely to vote for the Green Party or the Liberal Democrats in a general election than other parties when they become adults, research suggests. The study, by the University of Edinburgh and the UK Medical Research Council and published in the journal Intelligence, indicates that childhood IQ is as important as social class in determining political allegiance. The IQs of more than 6,000 subjects were recorded at the age of 10, before any secondary schooling. Twenty-four years later they were asked about their voting habits.

Wonder how that would play out in the U.S. in the future? Derek Wall in particular has been highlighting the campaign of Cynthia McKinney, the U.S. election’s green candidate. Wall quotes Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States, saying:

“A vote for the McKinney-Clemente ticket is an investment that will continue to pay off as the Green Party grows and challenges bipartisan corporate-money politics in the years to come. A vote for an independent is a valid protest vote, but does nothing to establish a permanent political alternative. The Green Party is a permanent political fixture with the hope of achieving major party status in the coming years.”

They also got Noam Chomsky’s vote. This video helps explain why:

She’s not getting into the White House (African-American AND a woman…) but it will be interesting to see what the results are in terms of the U.S. Green Party being a permanent electoral fixture after these elections.

(x-posted from The Current Climate)

But so far I’ve found only two MSM reports on the passing of the climate change bill; a bill which is a world-first in setting legal targets for nation-state government:

• Historic, yet nothing has been done (The Guardian)
• Companies face mandatory CO2 reporting (The FT)

The same angle on companies reporting their CO2 emissions was reported in The Telegraph prior to the vote on the bill.

What’s the reason for such a low level of coverage?
There are probably a few.

1. The real ’story’ came a few days before, with the news that Ed Miliband would accept Elliot Morley’s amendment to include aviation and shipping, in some form, in the bill.

2. The Guardian hinted at the lack of drama, which doesn’t make for good reporting: “Yesterday evening the bill finished its Commons stages. It was a radical moment, unmatched anywhere else in the world, the drama only slightly diminished by the threadbare debate that preceeded it.”

3. Actually the bill hasn’t made anything happen yet, and there’s an air of despair at it being too little, too late. This is what the Guardian had to so about that:

Yesterday’s Living Planet report from WWF International warned that human demands on the planet’s resources have doubled in 45 years, and that 75% of people live in countries that demand more resources than they can provide. The new Garnaut report from Australia warns that emissions are running away, increasing by 3% a year to 2030, making a mockery of British targets. Some scientists are close to panic: a recent collection of essays from the Royal Society suggested targets will never be met, and that the world should attempt “geoscale” interventions instead, such as dimming the sun. That sounds like fantasy. The better alternative is to make the climate change law work.

4. It’s not enough. As Caroline Lucas, Green MEP, says:

“The news that the Government is approving the inclusion of aviation and shipping emissions in its Climate Bill targets marks a real achievement for green campaigners – and a promising sign that, at long last, ministers might be starting to take their environmental responsibilities seriously.”

“[Yet] sadly, the Government’s carbon addiction looks set to result in more UK airport capacity and a fleet of new coal-fired power stations. But of course, that doesn’t matter to the Government because carbon trading will effectively allow it to outsource its ecological debt to other countries – ‘buying in’ emissions reductions from abroad and thus allowing for a business as usual approach at home.”

There is still a period of ‘Ping Pong’ (that’s the offical term for it, apparently) where the amendments go back and forth between the two Houses, and then on to Royal Assent, where it becomes law.

In many ways I’m glad there wasn’t too much coverage. When there has been, the papers have tied it up with party-political ideoligical positions, e.g. it’s a Labour bill, so the Telegraph and Daily Mail rejected it (which, luckily, many people were able to see through).

It has taken two and a half years at least to get this far, and perhaps another six months to get to law. And so far, not much has been done to move towards the 80% target. But it is a start.

(x-posted from The Current Climate)