Climate science doesn't need an easy ride

I was on the Media Show on Radio 4 last week, ostensibly to talk about how the BBC does science in the light of the BBC Trust's impartiality review. In the event Steve Hewlett, the show's feisty presenter, questioned me and Mary Hockaday, Head of the BBC newsroom, exclusively about the BBC's climate change coverage. I found myself live on air being asked about something called 'Glaciergate', which I had never heard of. (Nothing quite like that experience to make you read up on a subject pretty sharpish: as of an hour later, I'm the world expert on Glaciergate, and available for interview.)

Hewlett's line of questioning built on the view that the BBC's woolly liberals are soft on the mainstream science view of climate change. This idea was helpfully articulated in a pre-recorded interview by well-known sceptic James Delingpole, who raged against the killjoys on the BBC's Newsround for destroying kids' enjoyment of the snow by suggesting a link with climate change. As further evidence, Hewlett raised specific allegations that the BBC had been slow to report UEA-gate and now Glaciergate (though still too quick for me!). Both are stories which raise serious questions about the conduct of mainstream climate science.

Hockaday offered a robust defence of the BBC, and I can think of few more thoughtful and considered journalists on these recent controversies than Richard Black, Roger Harrabin, Tom Feilden and others at the BBC. But I think these journalists would be the first to agree that the media in general must strive to achieve even better journalism on this of all issues.

I speak to lots of journalists - it's what I do (as Director of the Science Media Centre). And I know that some believe that this is the most important issue of our times, and therefore requires a 'special' kind of journalism - a kind of journalism that considers more carefully the impact of certain stories on public opinion and policy-makers; a kind of journalism that would actually argue against running stories on UEA-gate and Glaciergate; a kind of journalism that boasts that certain sceptics will never be interviewed on their watch; and a kind of journalism that asks whether stories might damage negotiations at a critical time. 

I like these journalists and, as I've spent the past eight years calling for more responsible, accurate reporting on science, you might think I would champion this approach. 

But I don't: I think they are wrong and I'm not sure they are doing science any favours.

It's precisely because climate change is so important that it requires not 'special journalism' but the best journalism. For me, that means the most rigorous, objective, robust, investigative journalism we can muster. 

Of course, that means reporting every significant new scientific study which adds to the weight of evidence for man-made climate change, and it means ensuring the public know that sceptics are a tiny minority who hardly ever publish research to prove their claims. But it also means scrutinizing the most sensational claims, and reporting the very significant areas of uncertainty. It means trying harder to disentangle the politics from the science and the science from the advocacy. 

Journalists must question the source of stories and apply their own scepticism to anything that comes via the sceptics - but there are objective criteria for what makes a story, and those criteria should be applied irrespective of the source or the potential impact on public opinion. You could argue that it's because of a failure of critical journalism that it was sceptics who delivered UEA-gate and scientists who broke Glaciergate. 

Of course I'm not advocating journalists hacking into emails, but is it too much to ask that they scrutinize the most sensational claims made by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)? Yes, I know it's a long report and journalists are pushed for time, but it's possibly the most important report in the world, with easily the most far-reaching consequences. If we can get armies of journalists reading through every line of MPs' expenses claims, why not every line of IPCC reports? The journalists I've spoken to warn me to expect more mistakes to be unearthed ... but they sit in wait rather than searching themselves.

Now feels like a good time to reassess media coverage of climate change. There is some great reporting but there could and should be more and better. As Professor Mike Hulme wrote in his brilliant article about all this for the Wall Street Journal, too often the media conveys a debate in which "either the evidence for man-made climate change is all fake, or else we are so sure we know how the planet works that we can claim to have just five years to save it". The real story is so much more interesting.

Any reporting that gives mainstream climate science an easier ride simply plays into the sceptics' hands. I am exposed to a lot of climate science and I meet a lot of the best climate researchers in the UK. Many of them are rigorous, robust, brilliant scientists who have been doing the most incredibly painstaking research for 20 or 30 years (most of which was ignored by the media until recently). They neither want nor need 'special' journalism and are quite capable of handling the best that journalism can throw at them. And, as I said in my first blog, we would all learn a lot more from lengthy interrogations of these experts than we do from simply putting them in the ring with a sceptic. 

I believe that the science on climate change is strong enough to stand up the best journalism. And where it does fall down, we should know - that's what journalism is there for.