Nieman Reports, Winter 2005, Global Warming
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Nieman Reports Winter 2005 Vol. 59 No. 4
N R NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 59 NO. 4 WINTER 2005 Five Dollars Citizen Journalism Words & Reflections Intelligent Design Global Warming Hurricane Katrina Coverage “… to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” —Agnes Wahl Nieman, the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation. Vol. 59 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2005 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY Publisher Bob Giles Editor Melissa Ludtke Assistant Editor Lois Fiore Editorial Assistant Sarah Hagedorn Design Editor Diane Novetsky Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Editorial in March, June, September and December Telephone: 617-496-6308 by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, E-Mail Address: One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. [email protected] Subscriptions/Business Internet Address: Telephone: 617-496-2968 www.nieman.harvard.edu E-Mail Address: [email protected] Copyright 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Subscription $20 a year, $35 for two years; add $10 per year for foreign airmail. Single copies $5. Second-class postage paid at Boston, Back copies are available from the Nieman office. Massachusetts and additional entries. Please address all subscription correspondence to POSTMASTER: One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 Send address changes to and change of address information to Nieman Reports, P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. P.O. Box 4951, ISSN Number 0028-9817 Manchester, NH 03108. Vol. 59 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2005 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 Citizen Journalism 6 The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It? BY SHAYNE BOWMAN AND CHRIS WILLIS 11 Where Citizens and Journalists Intersect BY DAN GILLMOR 13 Citizen Journalism and the BBC BY RICHARD SAMBROOK 16 With Citizens’ Visual News Coverage Standards Don’t Change BY SANTIAGO LYON AND LOU FERRARA 17 Journalism as a Conversation BY JEAN K. -
The Public and Climate
THIS IS THE TEXT OF AN ESSAY IN THE WEB SITE “THE DISCOVERY OF GLOBAL WARMING” BY SPENCER WEART, HTTP://WWW.AIP.ORG/HISTORY/CLIMATE. JULY 2007. HYPERLINKS WITHIN THAT SITE ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS FILE. FOR AN OVERVIEW SEE THE BOOK OF THE SAME TITLE (HARVARD UNIV. PRESS, 2003). COPYRIGHT © 2003-2007 SPENCER WEART & AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS. The Public and Climate Already in the 1930s, many people noticed that their weather was getting warmer. Few connected this with human activity, and still fewer feared any harm. Gradually scientists, aided by science journalists, informed the minority of educated people that modern civilization might cause global warming, sometime far in the future. In the early 1970s, the question began to concern a wider public. By then most people had come to fear planet-wide harm from technology in general. Now an onslaught of droughts suggested we were already damaging the climate. The issue was confused, however, when experts debated whether pollution would bring global warming or, instead, an appalling new ice age. By the end of the 1970s, scientific opinion had settled on warming as most likely, probably becoming evident around the year 2000—that is, in a remote and uncertain future. Some scientists nevertheless went directly to the public to demand action to avert the warming, and a few politicians took up the issue. During the hot summer of 1988, a few outspoken scientists, convinced by new evidence that rapid climate change might be imminent, made the public fully aware of the problem. Scientific discussions now became entangled with fierce political debates over scientific uncertainty and the costs of regulating greenhouse gases. -
Exxon: Denial and Deception
DENIAL AND DECEPTION: A Chronicle of ExxonMobil’s Efforts to Corrupt the Debate on Global Warming A Report by May 2002 Acknowledgements The report was written and researched by Janet Sawin and Kert Davies, using research and reports by Greenpeace United Kingdom, Ross Gelbspan, Kirsty Hamilton and Bill Hare. Special thanks to the Ozone Action files. Greenpeace is grateful to the founda- tions, donors and members who support our global warming campaign. Foreward One way to look at human history is through the peri- experiment on the global climate. We have already odic struggles between those embodying the cor- been provided a glimpse of what happens as global rupting influence of power and those who have kept warming goes unabated, from the loss of low lying such power in check or even successfully under- island nations and beaches the world over, to the mined it. The American Revolution is arguably the spread of infectious diseases, disrupted agriculture, birth of the freedom movement in the Western world, more severe weather cycles including super storms, although the British might argue that the birth of the more droughts, more floods, and ultimately the mas- "rights of man" came from the issuing of the Magna sive die-off of the great forests, the disappearance of Carta and frankly, all cultures can point to great liber- many glaciers, and the further accelerated loss of ators of one era or another. biodiversity. Regardless of where it began, every massive center ExxonMobil’s role in defeating efforts to stop global of unaccountable power, whether it be the Roman warming is impressive. -
Hollywood at the Tipping Point: Blockbuster Cinema, Globalization, and the Cultural Logic of Ecology
HOLLYWOOD AT THE TIPPING POINT: BLOCKBUSTER CINEMA, GLOBALIZATION, AND THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF ECOLOGY by STEPHEN A. RUST A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2011 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Stephen A. Rust Title: Hollywood at the Tipping Point: Blockbuster Cinema, Globalization, and the Cultural Logic of Ecology This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English by: Dr. Michael Aronson Chairperson Dr. Sangita Gopal Member Dr. Louse Westling Member Dr. Jon Lewis Member, from Oregon State University Dr. Patrick Bartlein Outside Member and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research & Innovation/Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2011 ii © 2011 Stephen A. Rust iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Stephen A. Rust Doctor of Philosophy Department of English September 2011 Title: Hollywood at the Tipping Point: Blockbuster Cinema, Globalization, and the Cultural Logic of Ecology Approved: _______________________________________________ Dr. Michael Aronson Twenty-first century American cinema is permeated by images of globalization and environmental change. Responding to what Yale researchers have described as a “sea change” in public perceptions of global warming occurring between 2004 and 2007, this dissertation provides the first extended examination of Hollywood’s response to the planet’s most pressing social and environmental challenge – global climate change. Among the most widely distributed and consumed forms of popular culture, Hollywood blockbuster films provide a unique textual window into the cultural logic of ecology during this important turning point in Americans’ perceptions of environmental risk. -
Ealr, Volume 33, Number 3
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review Volume 33 Number 3 Environmental Law’s Path Through the 4th Estate: Environmental Law and the Media SYMPOSIUM ARTICLES BEHIND THE CURVE: THE NATIONAL MEDIA’S |REPORTING ON GLOBAL WARMING Matthew F. Pawa & Benjamin A. Krass [pages 485–510] Abstract: In July 2004, eight States, the City of New York and three land trusts ªled suit against ªve electric power corporations for contributing to global warming. The complaints allege that the defendants are the largest global warming polluters in the United States. The plaintiffs seek an injunction under the federal common law of public nuisance, or in the alternative, under state nuisance law, to require the power compa- nies to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide. Press coverage of the plaintiffs’ global warming case so far has been mixed. The press has generally failed to understand several of the important legal principles involved, including the legal doctrine of public nuisance. The legal case takes place against a backdrop of a long campaign of distortion by in- dustry relating to the science of global warming that has affected the reporting on global warming generally. Historically, the press has unwit- tingly distorted coverage of global warming science by uncritically ac- cepting the industry view that the science is in dispute. LAW, MEDIA, & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: A FUNDAMENTAL LINKAGE IN SUSTAINABLE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE Zygmunt J.B. Plater [pages 511–550] Abstract: The functional linkages between law and media have long been signiªcant in shaping American democratic governance. Over the past thirty-ªve years, environmental analysis has similarly become essen- tial to shaping international and domestic governmental policy. -
The Public and Climate
BTHIS IS THE TEXT OF AN ESSAY IN THE WEB SITE “THE DISCOVERY OF GLOBAL WARMING” BY SPENCER WEART, HTTP://WWW.AIP.ORG/HISTORY/CLIMATE. AUGUST 2021 HYPERLINKS WITHIN THAT SITE ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS FILE. FOR AN OVERVIEW SEE THE BOOK OF THE SAME TITLE (HARVARD UNIV. PRESS, REV. ED. 2008). COPYRIGHT © 2003-2021 SPENCER WEART & AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS. The Public and Climate Since antiquity, people believed that human activity might alter a local climate, but could scarcely affect the grand balances that governed the planet overall. Gradually scientists, aided by science journalists, informed the minority of educated people that modern civilization might cause global warming, sometime far in the future. In the early 1970s, the question began to concern a wider public. By then most people had come to fear planet-wide harm from technology in general. Now an onslaught of droughts suggested we were already damaging the climate. The issue was confused, however, when experts debated whether pollution would bring global warming or, instead, an appalling new ice age. By the end of the 1970s, scientific opinion had settled on warming as most likely, probably becoming evident around the year 2000—which at that point lay in a remote and uncertain future. Some scientists nevertheless went directly to the public to demand action to avert the warming, and a few politicians took up the issue. During the hot summer of 1988, a few outspoken scientists, convinced by new evidence that rapid climate change might be imminent, made the public fully aware of the problem. Scientific discussions now became entangled with fierce political debates over the costs of regulating greenhouse gas emissions.