Analysis and Opinion on the Climate and Sustainability Debate, edited @Chair of Climate Communication, University of Hamburg
As a scientist, when reading the “Scientists For Future” statement supporting the Fridays for Future protest marches, my initial response was disappointment. The statement uses an extremely basic language to summarize the demands of the Paris Agreement, and the key steps necessary to avoid the most perilous climate change hazards. There is nothing innovative, provocative or unexpected about this statement. Thus, I was very doubtful about its effectiveness. Continue reading Science For Dummies
“Fridays for future” protest in Hamburg (wikimedia.org CC-by-sa 3.0/de; March 1, 2019)
As Fenja and Michael earlier commented, the “Fridays for Future” movement is getting more and more media coverage in Germany. The climate strike is triggering many positive, but also nasty reactions, Continue reading “Yes, but”-narrative in the German climate debate
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”.
Today, I went to the streets with my ten-year-old son. It was his first protest march, and my second. We went with his elementary school class, loudly shouting: “don’t steal our future!” And while German politicians claim that they understand the children’s concerns, they also claim, more or less implicitly, that the children do not really get the complexities of politics and should “leave it to the professionals”. Continue reading Public protests “for future” as part of citizenship – children and scientists included
What kind of food do people in Hamburg usually eat, and do they link their daily consumption to sustainability? The sub-project from Prof. Stefanie Kley conducted a representative telephone survey with more than a thousand respondents in Hamburg from August to December 2018, dealing with the topics of food choice and nutrition. First results are now available (flyer, in German).
Continue reading First results from survey: What do people eat in Hamburg?
While Donald Trump was responsible for most peaks in the Twitter debate on climate change in recent years, 2018 was different: a scientific report trumped Trump in triggering the most intensive Twitter debate related to climate change.
As in previous years, we take a look at the Twitter data our Online Media Monitor (OMM) has gathered over the course of 2018, and describe the events that triggered tweets about climate change, as well as the most important domains that were linked to and the most active accounts in our sample.
Continue reading IPCC Report Trumps Trump: Climate Change on Twitter in 2018
Young people are often criticised as self-centred and politically disinterested. But recently, the next generation has been engaging more and more in climate politics, and their voice is getting heard – at least in media coverage.
Continue reading “Fridays for Future” – Can the next generation save our world?
As a former journalist I have always had an appreciation for the value of the written word. I have also always considered it an honour and a privilege to be published. I regarded authors to be the rightful owners of their text. In my world, you may give away texts as a present to your friends or to the scientific community or you may sell them. My idea of fair publishing did not include having to pay a private company to get published whilst losing the copyright of my work. Continue reading My journey towards fair open access book publishing
“The Conference of the Parties,
Recalling the Paris Agreement, adopted under the Convention,
Also recalling decisions 1/CP.21, 1/CP.22, 1/CP.23, 1/CMA.1 and 3/CMA.1,
Further recalling decisions 6/CP.1, 6/CP.2, 25/CP.7, 5/..." [1]
This is how ‘good’ stories start these days… if we consider ‘good’ to be the mere existence of a final document. In this light, on December 15th 2018, the 196 member states (parties) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), following negotiations at the 24. Conference of the Parties (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, agreed on a compromise. Prior to the meeting, some – including UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa – held high expectations of the conference becoming a “Paris 2.0” [2], others (e.g. evironmental NGOs like) – thinking of ever-rising carbon emissions, omnipresent coal mining and the USA’s withdrawal from the international treaty – saw themselves forced to keep their feet on the ground [3]. But what was finally agreed on?
During the first week of the recent COP 24 in Katowice/Poland, we reran our survey from 2015 and questioned a sample of German nationals about their climate change knowledge and attitudes. The German newspaper DIE ZEIT published an article about our first results – here is a summary for our English speaking readers: Continue reading First results of our new survey
