RSS
Max Boykoff quoted in ClimateWire
How media pushed climate change ‘pause’ into the mainstream
by Stephanie Paige Ogburn
Hot topic’ got warmed in ‘conservative circles’
Even the Union of Concerned Scientists, whose position on global warming sits in the human-caused camp, called IPCC’s forthcoming explanation of the pause a “hot topic” in a blog post on what to look for in the report.
IPCC scientists discussing the pause said it was mostly media attention that made it “hot” in the first place.
Initial attention to the pause came from those who have long questioned the underpinnings of climate science.
In 2009, the issue was highlighted in congressional testimony by William Happer, a physicist and climate contrarian at Princeton University. Around that time, it made the rounds in climate skeptic blogs and was mentioned in a column by conservative writer George Will.
It’s not uncommon for issues like the pause to be championed in media subcultures and eventually bubble up into the mainstream surface, said Max Boykoff, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who researches how climate change is portrayed in the media.
“Particularly in that case in the global warming pause, that had been cropping up in some of the conservative circles first and is something that got grabbed on to more in the mainstream media,” Boykoff said. Read more …
