You can help advocate for better media coverage on the climate emergency!

PUSH FOR LINKS BETWEEN WEATHER REPORTING AND CLIMATE CHANGE 

Use this structure to advocate for better, more accurate media coverage in all categories and from all news organizations:

0.  No link: Reports on extreme weather events and/or other phenomena and/or their impacts without mention or implication of cli. mate change (Daily Mail)

1.  Link: Identifies climate change as increasing the severity of extreme weather events and/or other phenomena and/or their impacts

2.  Strong link with causation: In addition to (1), includes statement recognizing human activity as the singular cause and/or labels the problem “human-caused”

3.  Causation explanation: In addition to (2), includes an explanation or reference to the sources of human-caused carbon emissions and the effect this has on Earth’s systems

4.  Urgency: In addition to (3), reporting and terminology signifies urgency of the situation and clearly calls out scientific timeframe for action (USA Today)

5.  Solutions-focused: In addition to (4), uses data to inform on necessary immediate and near-term steps, offers examples of large-scale and meaningful solutions including emissions reduction/elimination, fossil fuel divestment, eradication of single use plastics, renewable energy investment and development, and/or other solutions relevant to the story

RESOURCES FOR MEDIA OUTREACH 

Searchable Data Bases

1.    Climate Signals: Cataloging and Mapping the Impacts of Climate Change

2.    Skeptical Science: Explaining Climate Change Science and Rebutting Misinformation

3.    Climate Feedback: Fact-checking website containing reviews on articles and claims

4.    NASA: Articles and interactive components on climate change

5.    Climate Change Scientific Research: Various interactive components and independent research on climate change

6.    Carbon Brief: Independent news source covering stories on climate and climate policy

7.    Yale E630: Online magazine featuring original articles on environmental issues

8.    Climate Nexus: Background information on climate change and efforts to solve it

9.    Guardian-Covering Climate Now: Consolidate reports about climate change

Videos

1.    Global weirding (Youtube): Videos introducing climate change and related concepts

Reports

1.    National Climate Assessment: Summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States

2.    Climate Reporting by Weathercasters Enhances Public Understanding of Climate Change: Study showing that people who view climate reporting on TV better understand that climate change is happening and feel it is more important

3.    IPCC: Reports written by the IPCC on climate change, its specific issues, and guidelines for GHG inventories

4.    Climate Reality Project: Weather vs Climate

5.    Enventlab: Climate Fact Sheets