When the History Books Are Written

Failed Communication

When historians in future generations look back on the early twenty-first century they are likely to summarize the events of our time as follows.

1. This was a time of extraordinary communications technology. Anyone with anything to say could use social media, web sites, blogs and YouTube to communicate their message, often at little or no cost. Barriers to publication were minimal. It was even possible to self-publish a book with very little financial investment.

2. The most important message in those days was that the climate is changing rapidly, drastically and for the worse. The timing and the consequences were uncertain, but the situation looked bleak. Scientists and other professionals were predicting catastrophes, including famines, wars and refugee crises. Although these predictions varied widely in detail the general message was, by and large, correct. The predictions that these professionals made generally were correct. Indeed, major government bodies, such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) tended to underestimate the severity of the situation.

3. In spite of the power and affordability of the new communications tools, very few people listened to the information about climate change. And even fewer acted on that information. There was a lot of talking, but not much listening. The technology that allowed people to say what they thought allowed those people to remain inside their own information bubble. Only a tiny, tiny minority of the general public read the sober scientific reports. Even those people who were concerned about climate change treated it as just one problem among many.

4. What went wrong? How could communications have failed so totally?

These questions were triggered following the publication of an IPCC report at the beginning of April 2022. The title of the report was Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. (It was the third report in a four-part series; the first two reports assessed the causes and the impacts of the climate emergency; this one focused on mitigation.)

This report can be used to illustrate the near-absence of communication to do with the climate crisis. Here are two examples.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

The leading newspaper for central Virginia had the following items on its front page for April 5th 2022, the date the IPCC published the report. These items were:

• Virginia budget negotiations,

• War crimes in Ukraine,

• Planning information to do with an apartment complex in Richmond, and

• Confirmation of Justice Jackson to the Supreme Court.