Local climate reporting that isn’t ‘fake news’
It’s not the best of Times (or Garamond or Aptos) for journalism these days.
Community newspapers are going out of business or being bought up and slimmed down. Regional press faces financial pressures. The media landscape is increasingly polarized, with many distrusting journalists’ intentions.
And then there is the flood of information we swim in, making it difficult for citizens to distinguish between credible news currents and misinformation riptides. This adds to the general sense of confusion and distrust in media sources.
The hollow expression “fake news” is bandied about, as people gravitate to online sources of often unedited and unchecked content that aligns with their existing beliefs. An echo chamber with monotone replies.
It’s also a media environment with not enough good journalism on, well, the environment. Yet climate change media has never been more important:
It plays a vital role in educating the public about climate change, its causes, and its impacts.
It tells the stories of solutions-oriented approaches that can inspire action.
It helps bridge the divide between science and policy decisions.
It highlights how climate change affects different regions and communities inequitably.
Climate anxiety is growing, understandably. Fear of the future, fear of inaction, fear of the ticking clock. Report after report says we have very few years left to act to prevent the really horrible from becoming horribly real. And more extreme weather is making that readily apparent to most of us.
That’s why we don’t just need more climate reporting on what’s wrong (as important as that is) – we need to know about solutions and the people working to build cautious climate optimism.
Polls on climate change in Canada have shown that while there are the “very alarmed” on one end and the “dismissive and doubtful” on the other, in the middle is around half of Canadians that are “concerned” but not engaged in climate solutions; they don’t fully understand the issues or know what they should be doing.
This is why we founded the Climate Focus Society, a Nova Scotian non-profit organization that helps build plausible optimism around climate change through impactful storytelling.
To date, our flagship activity has been the Climate Story Network, dedicated to getting stories, information, and inspiration on climate and clean energy solutions to community-level media across Nova Scotia. We have offered professionally written and edited, no-cost, and copyright-free articles, local champion profiles, and backgrounders on climate change solutions to community media, non-profit newsletters, First Nations publications, and social media platforms.
We started the Climate Story Network to address a communications gap in Nova Scotia: by telling climate and clean energy success stories happening at the community level in ways that are both accessible and empowering, we can help overcome feelings of climate fatigue and climate despair.
However, we are keenly aware of the reality of community print and online media in the Atlantic region: since we started, too many local newspapers have unplugged their keyboards.
So we have evolved the Climate Story Network into Climate Stories Atlantic, a unique, high-profile, online destination for those looking to learn more about climate change solutions and cleaner energy initiatives. With printed word stories, profiles, backgrounders, columns, and a new podcast, we want to become a trusted source of climate content.
And while we want to change attitudes and spur individuals into climate action, overloading individuals with frightening and overwhelming statistics can be counterproductive and contribute to feelings of helplessness. Our stories will be about real people and real-world solutions.
Thank you for joining us and supporting local climate journalism.
