![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2018\/12\/mecco23.jpg\")
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Media and Climate Change Observatory<\/a> (MeCCO)<\/em> November media attention to climate change and global warming was down 8% throughout the world from October 2018, and up about 33% from November last year. Radio coverage held steady from October 2018 but was up 27% from November 2017. Across all sources, regionally an increase was detected in Europe (up 11%). Elsewhere, moderate decreases from October to November 2018 were found in North America (down 8%), Asia (down 14%) and Central\/South America (down 17%), while more substantial downturns in the quantity of coverage were found in the Middle East (down 21%), Oceania (down 34%) and Africa (down 39%).<\/p>\n In January of this year, MeCCO expanded coverage to sixty-two newspaper sources, six radio sources and six television sources. These span across thirty-eight countries, in English, Spanish, German and Portuguese. In addition to English-language searches of \u201cclimate change\u201d or \u201cglobal warming\u201d, we search Spanish-language sources through the terms “cambio clim\u00e1tico” or “calentamiento global”, German-language sources through the terms \u2018klimawandel\u2019 or \u2018globale erw\u00e4rmung\u2019, and Portuguese-language sources through the terms “mudan\u00e7as clim\u00e1ticas” or “aquecimento global”. Figure 1 shows these ebbs and flows in newspaper media coverage at the global scale \u2013 organized into seven geographical regions around the world \u2013 over the past 179 months (from January 2004 through November 2018).<\/p>\n At the country level, counts held steady or decreased from October to November 2018, except for in Spain where coverage was up 22%. In the United States, print coverage was down 5% in November compared to October, though still up considerably from the previous November 2017. However, US television coverage of climate change spiked in November 2018, as it was up 71% from October 2018 and also up considerably from coverage a year ago (November 2017).<\/p>\n In November, considerable attention was paid to\u00a0scientific<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0dimensions of climate change and global warming. For example, a new study published in\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0found that global oceans have been absorbing more heat than previously understood. This buffer to atmospheric warming was then noted, as oceans have warmed more than the IPCC previously estimated over the past twenty-five years. Journalist Matt McGrath from the\u00a0BBC\u00a0<\/a><\/em>reported<\/a>\u00a0\u201c this new study says that every year, for the past 25 years, we have put about 150 times the amount of energy used to generate electricity globally into the seas – 60% more than previous estimates\u201d.<\/p>\n A second example arose in early November through media coverage of the simultaneous release of two studies in\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0examining interactions between human activities and hurricane impacts. While\u00a0one study noted<\/a>\u00a0increased rainfall by hurricanes Katrina, Maria and Irma through anthropogenic climate change, the\u00a0second study predicted<\/a>\u00a0that future hurricanes will increase in intensity due to human contributions to climate change. Journalist Seth Borenstein from the Associated Press wrote, \u201cHurricane Harvey snagged on the skyscrapers of Houston, causing it to slow and dump more rain than it normally would, one study found. The city\u2019s massive amounts of paving had an even bigger impact by reducing drainage. Land development in the metro area, on average, increased the chances of extreme flooding by 21 times, study authors said. A second study looked at last year\u2019s major Hurricanes Maria and Irma and 2005\u2032s deadly Katrina and used computer simulations to see what would have happened if there had been no human-caused global warming. The\u00a0study found<\/a>\u00a0that climate change significantly increased rainfall from those three storms, but did not boost their wind speed.\u201d Meanwhile, journalist Rebecca Hersher from\u00a0National Public Radio<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported, \u201cA pair of studies published today in the journal Nature find that hurricanes are already causing more rain than they used to, and that cities themselves may be making the rainfall from those storms even worse\u201d.<\/p>\n As a third example, in mid-November a new study published in\u00a0Nature Climate Change<\/a><\/em>\u00a0found \u201ctraceable evidence for 467 pathways by which human health, water, food, economy, infrastructure and security have been recently impacted by climate hazards such as warming, heatwaves, precipitation, drought, floods, fires, storms, sea-level rise and changes in natural land cover and ocean chemistry\u201d. Journalist Maggie Fox from\u00a0NBC News<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported that lead author Camilo Mora and team \u201ccombed through more than 3,200 studies to try to paint a broad picture of what climate change is going to do to people over the coming century. They cross-referenced their findings against known disasters\u201d.\u00a0USA Today<\/a><\/em>\u00a0journalist Doyle Rice wrote, \u201cDon’t say we weren’t warned. From human health to the world’s food supply, from water scarcity to widespread migration and violence, the threats from climate change are much larger than previously thought, a study released Monday suggests. And in many places, several threats will be happening at once\u201d.<\/p>\n But the most prominent example in November 2018 was the Fourth US National Climate Assessment (NCA4) that was released the day after Thanksgiving, colloquially dubbed \u2018black Friday\u2019 and a decidedly slow news day when many citizens are busy expressing their identity as consumers. This peer-reviewed report co-authored by 300 relevant expert researchers noted that climate change will continue to impact millions of people across the US and cost billions of dollars in damage. Journalist Tony Barbosa from the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0wrote, \u201cThe congressionally mandated report by 13 federal agencies, the first of its kind under the Trump administration, found that climate change is already being felt in communities across the United States. It projects widespread and growing devastation as increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, worsening wildfires, more intense storms and other cascading effects harm our ecosystems, infrastructure and society\u201d. Meanwhile, journalist Steve Frank from\u00a0CBS News<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported, \u201cEarth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities, according to a long-awaited report released Friday by the federal government\u201d. And a significant amount of news organizations \u2013 such as\u00a0The Associated Press<\/em>,\u00a0Reuters<\/em>,\u00a0USA Today<\/em>,\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>,\u00a0BBC\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 covered US President Trump\u2019s reaction to the report. For example, journalist Rebecca Ballhaus from\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported, \u201cPresident Trump said Monday that he doesn\u2019t believe the central finding of a report released last week by his administration that global climate change could cause U.S. economic losses of hundreds of billions of dollars a year by the end of the century. Speaking to reporters before leaving Washington for Mississippi, Mr. Trump said of the report, \u201cI\u2019ve seen it. I\u2019ve read some of it. And it\u2019s fine.\u201d Asked if he agreed with the report\u2019s assessment of a large economic impact, he responded: \u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u201d.\u201d Read more …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) November 2018 Summary November media attention to climate change and global warming was down 8% throughout the world from October 2018, and up about 33% from November last year. Radio coverage held steady from … Continue reading
\nNovember 2018 Summary<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/sciencepolicy.colorado.edu\/icecaps\/research\/media_coverage\/summaries\/images\/2018_23_figure1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/sciencepolicy.colorado.edu\/icecaps\/research\/media_coverage\/summaries\/images\/2018_23_figure2.jpg\")
Moving to considerations of content within these searches, Figure 2 shows word frequency data in the US television media coverage in November 2018. While US TV coverage was up to its highest levels since December 2016, television media attention appeared to be driven by stories relating to President Trump rather than other stories like the US National Climate Assessment (NCA4) released on November 23 (see below for more). In US television coverage of climate change or global warming in November 2018, \u2018Trump\u2019 was explicitly invoked over fourteen times more frequently than the words \u2018science\u2019 or \u2018scientists\u2019 together and nearly four times more frequently than the word \u2018climate\u2019 itself, for examples.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/sciencepolicy.colorado.edu\/icecaps\/research\/media_coverage\/summaries\/images\/2018_23_callout2.jpg\")
As a fourth example, a new\u00a0University of Chicago report<\/a>\u00a0released in mid-November articulated that particulate pollution from fossil fuel burning effectively has shortened life spans by over four years for an average Indian and nearly three years for a typical denizen in China.\u00a0Washington Post<\/a><\/em>\u00a0journalists Bonnie Berkowitz, John Muyskens, Manas Sharma and Monica Ulmanu reported that lead author Michael Greenstone credited the 1970 US Clean Air Act for many avoided deaths from air pollution in the United States, and noted that it was why \u201cwildfires in California triggered air quality alerts and forced school closings many miles away\u201d.<\/p>\n