Climate change storytelling in national media outlets: Finding global patterns in local stories

Abstract:

The effects of climate change are playing out everywhere around the planet, and plenty of readers now understand the scale of the problem and the urgency with which it needs to be addressed. They know crossing the 1.5C degree threshold will be (or is) bad and they know 2C is worse; they know the broad outlines of the consequences that different communities will face, from coastal flooding to stronger storms to drought, and more. But what my readers are asking for now is an understanding of exactly how these big-scale issues are playing out in their own communities. What heat waves or floods have they lived through that we can say were intensified by climate change? What, exactly, will life in their city or town feel like in 2030 or 2050? And most importantly: How can their communities learn from others that have implemented successful adaptation or mitigation strategies? Readers want stories that lay out their own personal realities and can give them a road map for where they're headed in the future. I'll explore the ways my team at Nat Geo uses science to help inform our reporting so that we can bring these global-scale issues down to a very personal scale for our readers.