In the past 2 months I’ve seen lots of articles from national and global news outlets linking covid19 to a fall/plunge/drop in CO2 emissions. How are the public supposed to know this describes a ‘fall’ in emission rates instead of a fall in cumulative emissions? #thread #climate

Terminology like ‘falling’ is used in economic reporting for things like stocks and shares, the public understand have a value that goes up and down. This downplays the extent of the climate change problem making people falsely believe CC can be reversed without sweeping changes

This could have easily been avoided had the authors of all these articles described emissions as ‘slowing down’ rather than ‘falling’. Terminology is important, as climate scientists we need to be proactive in making sure the media use the simplest and most accurate terminology

This has likely done significant damage to the CC narrative.

Another concern is that by reporting on this at the same time as the popularisation of social media posts about ‘nature returning’ (photos of cleaner air and freshwater systems) CC will also be associated as a short term easily solved problem.

Whether or not each of these articles articulates that emissions have slowed, the damage is done by the headline. These headlines are repeated almost verbatim on the radio and TV news meaning the headline message reaches millions more than the initial readership of the papers.