Author: Climate Matters Editorial Team

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Does an AI Dream of the Climate Crisis? – A conversation with ChatGPT

woman looking at an android

by Robin Tschötschel

So-called “large language models” — machine learning systems trained on vast amounts of text written by humans — become better and better and are set to take over a wide array of tasks. As researchers, this development is both exciting and worrying, as it will likely have large impacts on knowledge production, teaching, and how we do research.

One of the concerns is that these models either inherit or produce new biases and provide inaccurate information. Especially in politically contested areas, like climate change, this can be a real problem.

There are many ways to evaluate language models, but leading a conversation with it can be quite entertaining and informative. To make the conversation less repetitive, some of the answers have been shortened. Actual questions asked are in italics.

Can you introduce yourself? Continue reading Does an AI Dream of the Climate Crisis? – A conversation with ChatGPT

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Rezension: “Medien in der Klima-Krise”

Cover Medien in der Klima-Krise

von Leia Nicki Kantenwein

In dem von KLIMA° vor acht herausgegebenen Sammelband „Medien in der Klima-Krise“ beschäftigen sich Expert_innen aus den Bereichen Klima- und Kommunikationsforschung mit dem Zustand, den Problemen und mit Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung der Berichterstattung über die Klimakrise. In dem Buch ist wichtiges Wissen versammelt, das Medienschaffende zum Umdenken bewegen kann. Leider tappen viele Beiträge in die Falle des Individualismus.

In 23 Beiträgen versammelt der 2022 erschienene Band verschiedene Stimmen aus der Praxis und aus der Forschung. Er stellt die Frage, wie man einen Journalismus gestalten kann, der den gesamtgesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen gewachsen ist, die die fortlaufende Zerstörung unserer aller Lebensgrundlage mit sich bringt. Continue reading Rezension: “Medien in der Klima-Krise”

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Anders über ökologische Krisen reden und berichten – Veranstaltung & Rezensions-Reihe

people taking notes

In einer neuen Post-Reihe stellen wir Bücher vor, die den Klima- und Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurs kritisch beleuchten: Wie können wir anders über ökologische Krisen reden und berichten?

Zu dieser Frage findet am Donnerstag, 15. Dezember um 10.15 – 11.45 Uhr eine Online-Paneldiskussion mit den Autoren Christopher Schrader und Michael Adler und Ulrich Grober statt – offen universitätsintern für Studierende/Mitarbeitende.

Zu den Buch-Rezensionen:

Alle weiteren Posts der Rezensions-Reihe werden im Laufe des Januars und Februars veröffentlicht und in diesem Post gesammelt.

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What Can We Expect From COP27?

logo of COP27 in Egypt

by Fenja De Silva-Schmidt

As every year, November will be another high season for international climate politics – with the 27th Conference of the Parties – the COP27 – starting next week. From November 7 to 18, delegates of all nations from the UNFCC will gather in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss how to proceed with international climate policy. All in all, more than 35,000 participants are registered. But what are the goals of this year’s conference, and what results can we realistically expect? Continue reading What Can We Expect From COP27?

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Climate Endgame – How to Research and Communicate Extreme Climate Risks?

Firefighters in front of a wall of flames, wading through shallow water

by Felix Schaumann

“Are we screwed?”, “How bad is it gonna get?” – these are the questions that I most frequently get when I mention that I am in climate science. Newspaper coverage of a recent perspective article in PNAS seemed to suggest that we are actually headed towards a global catastrophe with potential extinction and that we know dangerously little about it: “Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’ – Scientists say there are ample reasons to suspect global heating could lead to catastrophe”, or “We Are Not Freaking Out Enough About Climate Change”.

This media coverage has led other researchers to criticize the underlying article for being too gloomy – they argue it scares the public and overemphasizes the likelihood of catastrophic climate change. Continue reading Climate Endgame – How to Research and Communicate Extreme Climate Risks?

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Telling the Truth, Uniting Behind the Science – Climate Coalitions and Science’s Place in Society

extinction rebellion activists protest with a pink boat in the city

by Simone Rödder

In recent years, a new wave of climate activist groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and the Sunrise Movement have reshaped public debates on climate action. In so doing they refer to scientific evidence. But, how exactly do they understand science’s relationship to society? Drawing on documentary evidence, our recent study argues that the use of evidence by these groups, especially the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reflects an effective form of science communication, albeit one that leaves hierarchies of scientific knowledge largely intact.

“Unite behind the Science!” and “Tell the Truth!” are among the familiar slogans of the school-striking young activists inspired by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion. The new climate movements’ call to listen to science has become almost emblematic; it was printed, for example, on the sailboat Greta Thunberg used to cross the Atlantic in September 2019. But what do they actually mean by “science”? Continue reading Telling the Truth, Uniting Behind the Science – Climate Coalitions and Science’s Place in Society

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“Cranky Uncle” – A Game Against Denial

smartphone game Cranky Uncle

by Fenja De Silva-Schmidt

One big question for climate change communication is how to deal with deniers and stop misinformation from spreading. A smartphone game called “Cranky Uncle” teaches players common techniques of denial, such as ‘cherry picking’, logical fallacies, and conspiracy theories.

What looks like a funny diversion is actually built upon a scientific theory and developed by a team with long experience working with climate change deniers – in the US, but also in other countries like Germany. Continue reading “Cranky Uncle” – A Game Against Denial

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Global Climate Change in Local Journalism: How to Make Local Journalists Rethink Their Framing

houses seen from below

Not only in photography do choice of angle and frame decide what we see. Photo by Ludovic Charlet, Pixabay.

By Susan Jörges

Framing of climate change in local newspapers considerably influences how citizens perceive climate change in their living environment. A master thesis entitled “Global climate change in local journalism” takes a closer look at the main source of local media frames: cognitive frames from local journalists. This article summarizes the main results and presents six implications for improving local climate change reporting. Continue reading Global Climate Change in Local Journalism: How to Make Local Journalists Rethink Their Framing

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The Soundtrack of the Climate Crisis – or: „Where are all the Climate Songs?“

logo music and climate crisis

by Fenja De Silva-Schmidt

Extreme weather events and forest fires have recently pushed the climate crisis up on the news agenda – still, going to the cinema or listening to the radio rarely gets us in contact with the topic. Where are the songs dealing with the climate crisis?

In two previous posts, we have written about climate change in pop songs and climate change in alternative and indie music (all posts of our series on “Climate Change in Pop Culture” can be found here). Now there is even a database for songs dealing with the climate crisis and mass extinction: Continue reading The Soundtrack of the Climate Crisis – or: „Where are all the Climate Songs?“