AU Forum
nisbetmc | March 9, 2010
American Today, the weekly newspaper for American University, ran this feature on last week's AU Forum and public radio broadcast of "The Climate Change Generation: Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World." My graduate assistant Brandee Reed has also produced a transcript of the panel which I have pasted below the fold.
I was joined on the panel by AU journalism professor Jane Hall who served as moderator, and fellow panelists Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones magazine. The transcript is not quite professional quality, but it does provide…
nisbetmc | March 5, 2010Dan Vergano of USA Today has an important column out this weekend. Vergano, I believe, is the first major journalist to call into question the now dominant narrative that "ClimateGate" has powerfully damaged public trust in scientists.
In the column, he quotes Stanford professor Jon Krosnick with the following apt observation. As Vergano writes:
What's really happening, suggests polling expert Jon Krosnick of Stanford University, is "scientists are over-reacting. It's another funny instance of scientists ignoring science."
The science that Krosnick is referring to are the multiple polling…
nisbetmc | March 4, 2010That's the question raised in an American Observer article about this week's AU Forum held on the "Climate Change Generation? Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World." The Observer is the digital news site run by graduate students in journalism at American University. Here's how reporter Kristen Becker described the issue with reactions from students, Forum moderator Jane Hall, and panelists Juliet Eilperin and Kate Sheppard:
Although a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found the number of Americans who believe climate change is occurring has dropped from 80 percent to 72…
nisbetmc | March 3, 2010
Graham, Kerry, Lieberman, and Gore all share the same goal but are moving to differentiate themselves as a way to claim credit for climate action and to appeal to different audience segments.
At The NYTimes.com, Greewire's Darren Samuelsohn examines Senator Lindsey Graham's strategy to define cap and trade legislation as "dead." The Senator's declaration has been most notably quoted in a January article at the New York Times and in an article Saturday at the Washington Post, with his remarks much discussed and debated among other members of Congress, by advocates, in the blogosphere,…
nisbetmc | March 2, 2010
Americans under the age of 35 have grown up during an era of ever more certain climate science, increasing news attention, alarming entertainment portrayals, and growing environmental activism, yet on a number of key indicators, this demographic group remains less engaged on the issue than older Americans.
A survey report released today challenges conventional wisdom that younger Americans as a group are more concerned and active on the issue of climate change than their older counterparts. The analysis of nationally representative data collected in January of this year is timed for release…
nisbetmc | March 2, 2010
At last night's AU Forum on The Climate Change Generation, one of the students asked what can be done to break public indifference on the issue.
In the YouTube clip above, I answered that Obama as president needs to make climate change a leading communication priority, marshaling the power of the bully pulpit for a long term president-led engagement campaign on the issue. When and if this happens, I suggested one of the first things Obama should do is to personally host a series of Rose Garden summits with religious leaders, business leaders, public health experts, and national security…