PB: The task at hand is complicated since not only as journalists we may have to report the ever evolving and some times little understood science, but we also need to inform our audiences on the highly polarized politics of climate change. It is a minefield out there and tiptoeing through the maze is not going to be easy for most journalists. I certainly don’t see a spectacular crescendo building up like it did in the run up to the Copenhagen Conference. Measured, well articulated, meaningful, rounded coverage is what one hopes to see. Emotional outbursts and alarmist outpourings are certainly not going to help the world reach a just and equitable accord on the issue of climate change.
Historically, the U.S. may have been the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but the future really lies in what the two global giants India and China do to contain their emissions. Both are embracing nuclear energy in a big way ever since climate change has forced a renaissance of this moribund industry. Is this a jump from the frying pan to the fire? Both countries are also looking to adopt renewable energy pathways, India taking the solar route and China—where I was last week—seeking solutions from wind energy, having just commissioned its first off-shore wind farm near Shanghai.
I am not a soothsayer to be able to predict what will be the outcome at Cancun but I would be surprised if similar large numbers of world leaders even attend the Cancun climate conference like they did at Copenhagen, but at the same time the underlying tensions of a changing climate are more than apparent, giving it the ripe ambience to tell many stories. Exciting times for journalists like me.
When journalists will ask some tough questions to scientists on some darling scientific theories such as the ones explaining the origin and evolution of the universe and life?
#1 Posted by Enezio E. de Almeida Filho, CJR on Tue 14 Sep 2010 at 03:04 PM
Salute this man! Pachauri did what no climate sceptic is able to do. A Trojan Horse that destroyed the IPCC from the inside.
If Pachauri did not exist, we climate sceptics would have had to literally invent him. He is in fact every sceptic’s dream. How could we have asked for more when he embodies the UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in all completeness? Interestingly, he also strongly epitomizes the typical climate activist and their organizations that they are attached. Did he mould both in his image or its vice versa is however for history to judge.
Next month 194 governments of the IPCC are scheduled to meet in Busan, South Korea. This is where a plot to ouster Pachuari could be unleashed. Pachuari remains defiant: “At the moment, my mandate is very clear. I have to complete the fifth assessment” The Indian Government who Pachuari is their candidate is equally defiant, backing him to the hilt. If Pachauri goes, we leave the IPCC! And if India leaves the IPCC, it can trigger an exodus.
Read More: http://devconsultancygroup.blogspot.com/2010/09/salute-this-man-pachauri-did-what-no.html
#2 Posted by Rajan Alexander, CJR on Wed 15 Sep 2010 at 04:07 AM
Interesting that he is afraid of challenging the core idea of global warming, and doesn't wish to be seen as a "denialist". Of course a changing climate is a reality, a very safe statement to make, but the IPCC is set up to prove that anthropogenic CO2 is to blame for any climate changes that we see and claim they have done so, almost. They now say "very likely", up from "likely" in 2002.
Very scientific language and quite surprising, because since 1995, in spite of a couple of spikes due to El Nino, global temperatures are not escalating, against a background of still rising CO2.
I like the idea that if Pachauri goes, India will leave the IPCC. That hadn't occurred to me. Go Rajendra, go!
#3 Posted by harbinger, CJR on Wed 15 Sep 2010 at 05:54 AM
Why do no articles in the popular press on global warming, ever, explain:
1. Why we might anticipate global warming (the theory of blackbody radiation, conservation of energy, and the optical properties of CO2).
2. How negative feedbacks (warming leading to additional cloud coverage leading to a higher reflectivity) *might* offset some of that warming.
#4 Posted by surlybastard, CJR on Wed 15 Sep 2010 at 11:12 AM