Is it the end of the world as we know it?

They call it "climate porn," for lack of a more sophisticated vocabulary. Sensationalist. Alarmist. Hyperbolic. You pick the term. But the criticism is only valid if the media coverage of climate change is based on something other than a fair representation of the science of climate change. So is it? This week's edition of the BBC's radio program(me) One Planet takes a poorly-aimed stab at the question. Instead of even trying to provide an answer, the producers merely reiterate the claim that the coverage is alarmist. Excuse me, but we already knew that. The real question is, is the alarmism warranted?

I expected more from a program that enjoys the luxury of exploring a serious subject for 30 minutes, rather than the 90 -- or if we're lucky 120 -- seconds usually afforded treatments in the corporate broadcast media of North America. But no. All we get are claims by journalists, such as the reliably sensationalist London Independent's Michael McCarthy, that the over-the-top headlines are justified because they are truthful representations of what climatologists are saying. See for example, the Indy's front page of 1 Jan. 2007, at right. The caption at bottom asks, "So, can we act fast enough to avert climate change catastrophe?"

The One Planet producers could have bothered to call up a few actual climatologists and ask them if words such as "catastrophe" are in fact justified by their science. But not a single professional scientist was interviewed. The closest thing was a campaigner for Greenpeace -- a reasonable and intelligent fellow, to be sure, but not exactly the expert we're looking for.

Of course, there is a wide variety of opinion about the media out there, and it's hard to detect any real consensus, at least not a consensus anything like the one that does seem to characterize the science. For example, one of my favorite climate science bloggers, James Annan, does not think highly of one of my favorite climate science journalists, Fred Pearce of New Scientist, with the former calling the latter "execrable."

For me, Pearce's coverage is appropriately unpredictable. Sometimes he writes about how bad things might get, other times he's making an honorable effort to demolish popular myths. But it doesn't take much in the way of imprecise language to make a scientist take umbrage at a reporter's work, especially when the scientist is an expert whose work was the subject of said coverage.

Nevertheless it should be possible for a dispassionate dilettante to compare the headlines and content of selected media outlets with the peer-reviewed science on which the coverage is allegedly based. The Independent is a crusader newspaper, though, so perhaps we should look at an outlet that at least claims to some degree of objectivity. Below is a screen capture of Saturday's New York Times list of top environment stories, via a "my.nytimes.com" customized front page:

"Fears." "Grim." "Unnerves." Are such words warranted?

In some cases, I think, they are. The recent fuss over the melting north polar ice cap was accompanied by some sensationalist language from the experts. Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado used words like "disturbing" this year and his center's official website chose "stunning" back in 2005, which wasn't nearly as extreme a melt as what just happened.

NASA's Jim Hansen and his long list of co-authors at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University and elsewhere have used the word "dangerous" repeatedly to describe the consequences of the "business as usual" future, the one in which we make no effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

There are cases where the opposite is the case. The Independent's front page above, shows the pitfalls of trying to cover the future, which is always a tad harder than covering the past. El Nino of 2007 didn't turn out to be nearly as bad as some thought, for one. Melting permafrost-bound methane may not be about to tip the planet into a runaway greenhouse effect, as some less careful reporters would suggest. And the Gulf Stream isn't about to stop.

But overall, there are lots of examples of strong words coming from the mouths and keyboards of reputable climatologists. Can you really blame editors for using the language they do when there are scientists employing the same communications strategy?

That doesn't mean the scientists are necessarily right to do so. But it does mean the critical analysis should be leveled not so much at the media as their sources. So enough with the simplistic and cursory criticism of "alarmist" newspaper headlines. In this day of Internet-distributed science, it's not so hard to examine the primary material.