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Blogpost series: Current protests for climate protection

As the protests for more political engagement in climate protection have spread to even more countries and expandend from schoolchildren protesting on “Fridays for Future” to “Scientists for Future” supporting them, we have decided to publish a series of blogposts on this social movement, its coverage in the debate and in media reporting.

This post will serve to compile a list of the blogposts related to this topic.

Part 1: “Fridays for Future” – Can the next generation save our world?, January 27, 2019

Part 2: Public protests “for future” as part of citizenship – children and scientists included, March 15, 2019

Part 3: “Yes, but“-narrative in the German climate debate, March 20, 2019

Part 4: Science for Dummies, March 20, 2019

There is also a report about the climate change protests in Boulder, Colorado (USA) on our partner blog, as well as a comment by Max Boykoff why “The kids are all right”.

Den Klimaschutz nicht zerreden – Vier Fallen der Klimakommunikation

Wenn am kommenden Wochenende der UN-Klimagipfel in New York beginnt, dürfte der mediale Aufmerksamkeitsstrudel um Klimaaktivistin Greta Thunberg noch einmal an Kraft gewinnen. Michael Brüggemann, Professor für Klima- und Wissenschaftskommunikation an der Universität Hamburg, kritisiert die Fokussierung der Berichterstattung auf die Person „Greta“ und die fehlende inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema. Außerdem erklärt er, was gängige Argumentationsmuster in der Klimaschutzdebatte mit einem Stau zu tun haben.

von Michael Brüggemann Continue reading Den Klimaschutz nicht zerreden – Vier Fallen der Klimakommunikation

Ankündigung: Berichterstattung zum K3 Kongress zu Klimawandel, Kommunikation & Gesellschaft

von Joana Kollert

Am 24. und 25. September 2019 findet der deutschsprachige Klimakommunikationskongress K3 zum zweiten Mal statt – dieses Mal am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT).

Continue reading Ankündigung: Berichterstattung zum K3 Kongress zu Klimawandel, Kommunikation & Gesellschaft

“The Kids Are All Right – Adults Are the Climate Change Problem” by Max Boykoff

There is an interesting new comment by Prof. Max Boykoff on our partner blog from the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research in Boulder, Colorado/USA. He describes how older adults try to diminish climate engagement promoted by young activists – and calls for more support: “Trust in this next generation of leaders”.

Read the comment here.

New Post series: “Climate Change in Pop Culture” – Part 1: YA Novels

by Fenja De Silva-Schmidt

As climate change has become a topic intersecting many domains of our lives, it is hardly surprising that it has also made its way into pop culture. In a series of short posts, we are going to present examples of novels, songs and films dealing with the topic of climate change.

Part 1: Young adult novels

reading girl

Young adult (YA) novels are a special genre of fiction, written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age, but also read by many adults (as this article describes, half of the readers are adults). Continue reading New Post series: “Climate Change in Pop Culture” – Part 1: YA Novels

New post series: “Explain your Jargon” – Part 1: What is a climate model?

A video series of climate change jargon buster
by Shorouk Elkobros

Climate models, geoengineering, loss and damage – those are some of the confusing terminologies that you’ll stumble upon when reading about climate change and climate politics.

Communicating climate change is a challenge. Most science journalists face difficulty in writing about technical notions that are hard to grasp. In our series ‘Explain your jargon’, we aspire to decode difficult climate terminologies and to present them in an easy, interesting and relatable way. In our first episode we ask: What is a climate model? Continue reading New post series: “Explain your Jargon” – Part 1: What is a climate model?

Oceans will change colour due to Climate Change

by Felicitas Vach

Blue like the ocean. This saying could be overrun already by the end of this century. Our grandchildren might not see the oceans as we see them now. Scientists predict that the world’s largest waters will turn rather green due to climate change.

Continue reading Oceans will change colour due to Climate Change

Erschienen im Hamburger Abendblatt: Hamburg sollte dem Spuk mit den E-Scootern ein Ende machen

von Michael Brüggemann und Joana Kollert

https://www.abendblatt.de/meinung/article226570497/Hamburg-sollte-dem-Spuk-mit-den-E-Scootern-ein-Ende-machen.html

E-Scooter im Stadtpark Hamburg. Bild von Joana Kollert

Jetzt hat Bundesverkehrsminister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) aber gezeigt, dass er etwas schaffen kann. Nur anderthalb Monate nachdem er seine Lieblingsidee von E-Scootern in deutschen Städten durch den Bundesrat gejagt hat, liegen sie bereits überall im öffentlichen Raum herum. Leider wird damit kein Problem gelöst, sondern eins geschaffen.

Continue reading Erschienen im Hamburger Abendblatt: Hamburg sollte dem Spuk mit den E-Scootern ein Ende machen

Wer vertraut denn heute noch den Medien?

von Fenja De Silva-Schmidt und Michael Brüggemann

Ein durchaus besorgniserregender Befund unserer Forschung ist ein mangelndes Vertrauen der deutschen Bevölkerung in die Medienberichterstattung zum Klimawandel. In der deutschlandweiten Umfrage unseres Projekts „Down to Earth“ war die größte Gruppe unentschlossen, ob sie den Medien bei diesem Thema vertrauen soll. Die zweitgrößte Gruppe vertraute den Medien nicht; nur eine Minderheit vertraute ihnen (siehe Grafik). Dies steht im Widerspruch zum durchaus robustem Vertrauen der Mehrheit in die Medien, so wie wir es aus anderen Befragungen kennen.

grafik zum Medienvertrauen 2015 und 2018

Eine mögliche Erklärung für dieses schlechte Zeugnis für die Klimapolitikberichterstattung liefert nun eine Langzeitstudie zum Medienvertrauen der Uni Mainz. Continue reading Wer vertraut denn heute noch den Medien?

Results from survey: What do people eat in Hamburg? (Part II)

In a second flyer (in German), the sub-project team from Prof. Stefanie Kley presents more results from their representative telephone survey in Hamburg, taking a look at factors explaining different eating habits.

While 30 percent of men consume meat (almost) daily, only 18 percent of women have such a high meat consumption. There are also more female vegetarians and flexitarians.

They found that there is a gender difference (women eat less meat than men) and also an influence of education (people with a higher formal education eat less meat). For age, there was no clear trend.

Das Team von Prof. Stefanie Kley präsentiert in einem zweiten Flyer weitere Ergebnisse aus der im vergangenen Jahr in Hamburg durchgeführten telefonischen Umfrage. Darin wird beschrieben, welchen Einfluss Geschlecht, Bildung und Alter auf die Ernährungsgewohnheiten der Befragten haben.

New publication: Scientific networks on Twitter

Scientists communicate online via social media about climate change. They engage with other scientists as well as with journalists, civil society and politicians. To what extent and how their language use varies depending on whom they talk to was examined by Stefanie Walter, Ines Lörcher and Michael Brüggemann by combining network and automated content analysis. The full article with all findings is now available online (open access).