When news articles say that a politician or public figure “doesn’t believe in climate change,” it frustrates me.
Climate change is, unfortunately, a fact and not something that has a questionable existence. Heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have spiked dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, causing the Earth’s average surface temperature to climb 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s.
Journalists are supposed to be as truthful as possible in their writing. So why not call it what it is? News outlets, the Gazette included, should not say someone doesn’t believe in climate change and instead should say a person doesn’t understand it.
OK, I hear you if you think it’s just a nitpicky one-word swap. But saying one believes or does not believe in climate change reinforces the idea that climate change may not be happening. It is.
Look at it this way: You do, don’t or maybe believe in ghosts or a god — not scientifically proven concepts. One would not say that a public figure doesn’t “believe” in other scientifically backed concepts, like gravity.
It’s a shift in word choice that I hadn’t thought of until I saw someone suggest it on Twitter a few months ago, though I can’t remember or now find who said it. It felt particularly pertinent thisweek as the Gazette is putting a special focus on climate change as part of Covering Climate Now, an international initiative with more than 250 publications on board.
I don’t mean to patronize to those who don’t understand climate change because they haven’t had access to science education or they have another legitimate reason not to. I mean for this to apply to anyone who should understand climate change — like politicians making laws about it.
As a reporter, I don’t usually write op-eds for the newspaper. Typically, journalists are not supposed to express their political opinions in the paper. Though climate change has undeniably become politicized, this opinion is not political. It’s about science, not politics — and that’s the point.
Greta Jochem is a reporter at the Daily Hampshire Gazette.