Climate Skepticism in British Newspapers, 2007–2011

Abstract

Climate skepticism in the UK media has not been a major focus of recent research. This paper aims to help fill the gap by looking at the incidence of skeptical voices in UK newspapers across three periods: 2007, 2009/2010, and 2010/2011. After analyzing more than 3200 articles, it finds that skeptical voices increased their presence markedly across all newspapers and all types of articles in the second period, and maintained a significant presence in many in the third. Uncontested skeptical voices were particularly prevalent in opinion pieces and editorials in right-leaning newspapers in the second. It also finds that skeptical voices or opinions were more likely to be included in pieces written by in-house non-specialist columnists than by environment editors or correspondents. The negative implications of the results for public understanding and the quality of public debate are then explored.