FEED WINTER 2021 – Newsletter

2000-2021 US television coverage of climate change or global warming

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7 news segments combined

ROOM FOR GROWTH CNN appear to have more of a focus on climate issues, but so much can still be improved

FEED: What’s the future for your research?

MB: Funding agencies are not banging down our door.They like us doing all this for free and on our own time. But when you think of all the work that goes into monitoring our earth’s systems and natural physical sciences, if you were to take a little of that funding that might go into one small part of a satellite, we could do all kinds of additional work.We do what we can with the funding, but there’s a lot more to be done with investment.What we do adds value. I get that feedback from journalists, members of Congress and other decision makers.There’s a good sense of the ebbs and flows of coverage, but a systematic look would help us understand where certain outlets are putting resources, or when there’s greater attention being paid, therefore presenting better opportunities for engagement in action. We can discuss the conversations, portrayals and representations all we want. But it’s also important to think about how those translate into the

material activities of our lives and move into behaviour. At the university, we have founded a Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change (C3BC).We are working with psychologists to get a better handle on it.Thankfully, we’ve got great people who work in environmental psychology. We want to not just talk about attitudes, intentions, beliefs, perspectives – but how that translates into action.

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