National Public Radio tiptoes between climate-science views

By Steven T. Corneliussen

For watchers of journalism’s endless struggle to decide how to report on climate science, the National Public Radio piece ‘A Hot Topic: Climate Change Coming to Classrooms ’ invites particular attention. It tried to have things both ways concerning what scientists at the blog RealClimate condemned seven years ago as ‘the false objectivity of balance .’

RealClimate’s November 2005 posting attacked what’s also called false equivalence. It declared that ‘only a handful’ of climate scientists continued to dispute scientists’ climate consensus. It emphasized:

It does persist. Even the New York Times last year lapsed from its generally hard line favoring the consensus. And at NPR on 27 March, it flourished in Jennifer Ludden’s 4.5-minute Morning Edition clip.

Ludden’s subject was the climate portions of new, voluntary federal standards for science education . She consulted Heidi Schweingruber of the National Research Council, which was involved in creating the standards. Schweingruber affirmed that the climate portions represent the scientific consensus.

At one point, Ludden gave the microphone to Mark McCaffrey of the National Center for Science Education, who called the state of US climate-change education ‘abysmal.’ Ludden cited NCSE’s report Toward a Climate and Energy Literate Society , which seeks to help ‘provide this and future generations with the scientific foundation necessary to take informed actions to minimize climate impacts and prepare for changes that are already well underway.’

In framing her report on the new education standards, Ludden generally met the journalistic criterion advocated by RealClimate and others. But in a passage on political pressure, she gave the contrarians something close to equal time.

After mentioning Colorado’s consideration of an ‘Academic Freedom Act,’ she gave some time to Joshua Youngkin of the Discovery Institute, known for advocating intelligent design. ‘The bill will go toward creating an atmosphere of open inquiry,’ said Youngkin. ‘It just gives teachers a simple right to know that they can teach both sides of a controversy objectively, and in a scientific manner, in order to induce critical thinking in their student body.’

Ludden then noted that ‘critics point out there is no controversy within science: Climate change is happening, and it’s largely driven by humans.’ But she went on to balance a consensus-supporting quotation from former US vice president Al Gore with a consensus-blasting one from the British documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

She also gave the microphone to James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, which energetically opposes the climate consensus. ‘To the extent that these standards do paint a picture that I think runs counter to the scientific evidence, we’re going to make sure that we point that out,’ Taylor said.

Ludden emphasized that for students exposed to clashing public views on climate, the end result is confusion. Could an NPR editor therefore argue that, whatever the science and whatever the RealClimate scientists may say, public realities manifestly require balance from journalists?

Would such an editor accept RealClimate’s comparison from seven years ago, likening the assertions of flat-earthers to those of Discovery’s Youngkin, the British documentary, and Heartland’s Taylor?

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Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.