Blog from Dr Antal Wozniak (Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool) and Jill Hopke (Associate Professor of Journalism at DePaul University in Chicago).聽
Every five years the UK government is legally mandated to publish a The an independent group established under the , is expected to publish the fourth national climate risk report in 2026 and present it to Parliament in early 2027.
These national climate change reports can raise public awareness about climate risks, including to the country鈥檚 ecosystems. We used the third national climate risk assessment, released in January 2022, to study media attention to climate risks in the UK mainstream press.
The third listed 鈥渞isks to soil health from increased flooding and drought鈥 as one of eight priority climate risks facing the country. The report also stated that a new Soil Structure Measuring and Monitoring Scheme was being developed, but as of this writing, the healthy soils scheme is .
Climate change is most likely to make it onto the public鈥檚 agenda when political events, such as the annual COPs for climate change, or extreme weather events happen. Even then, breaking through the noise is hard. into media coverage of the July 2022 extreme heat, when temperatures topped 40掳C for the first time in recorded history, showed that only 36% of press reports about the heatwave mentioned climate change.
Degrading soil health is rarely featured in UK media reporting. Instead, it tends to be 鈥渃onfined to academic papers, local news reports, and reports by consultants,鈥 geomorphologist John Boardman.
Media Attention to Soil Health is Low
In of soil health discussion in the UK press following publication of the 2022 climate risk assessment, assuming the report to parliament might trigger some media attention to priority climate risks areas, we set out to examine the amount of coverage about degrading soil health due to climate change. In other words, media salience. In doing so, we sought to answer the question of how this issue is represented in the text of news reports and visually.
What we found is a stark lack of media reporting on soil health. Over two full years following the report鈥檚 publication we identified only 42 articles 鈥 across more than a hundred UK newspapers, including all widely-read national ones 鈥 that specifically covered climate-induced risks to the country鈥檚 soil health from increased flooding and drought.
revealed that:
- Press reports emphasized themes of either habitat/biodiversity loss or food insecurity.
- The root causes of the accelerating climate crisis were not discussed in the coverage. Instead, the overarching narrative was one about the inevitability of climate change. Basically, mainstream news supported the idea that there is no stopping climate change so the thing to do is to adapt to the consequences coming our way.
- Policymakers, both in writing and visually, were conspicuously absent from the observed news discourse. This implied that the needed adaptation efforts are the remit of individuals, communities, and industry alliances.
- Generic, stock-like photos made up the majority of the news images. Exchangeable photographs of agricultural activities or supermarket aisles were more prominent than pictures of people or wildlife. This rendered the issue as rather dull and abstract.
When mainstream news fails to pay attention to soil health, the public鈥檚 ability to recognize and act on the risks climate change poses to ecosystems and food security is severely compromised.
How to Improve Soil Health Media Coverage
Here we share some ideas of what could be done to improve media representations of soil health, from the most to the least feasible interventions.
First, soil scientists could try to make public engagement with their research findings a larger aspect of their work. In fact, the British public about scientific topics. Soil scientists can be trusted messengers to communicate the already of deteriorating soil health and the to government and politicians, agriculture-adjacent industry actors (food supply, retail, hospitality, agritech), and local communities.
To be sure, translating complex scientific facts to lay audiences is never easy. But as soil scientists, you are working in a discipline closely tied to the prospects for humanity鈥檚 future on this planet. Who better than you to sound the alarm bells 鈥 loudly and incessantly. If you are affiliated with a university, check to see if your institution offers media training. Training and tips are also available from the and the , among others.
We also recommend that risks to soil health are incorporated more consistently into environmental and science communication . If you are personally looking for a place to start, the Association of British Science Writers has complied a listing of in the UK. Other useful resources can be found from , , and the , of which Jill is a board member.
Finally, and at present most unrealistically, the (news) media system needs to pivot away from a for-profit bottom line. Shrinking newsrooms, along with increasingly precarious working conditions, news production driven by audience data metrics, and uncritical usage of artificial intelligence applications are anathema to a journalism industry that would have the resources and capabilities to more fully report on the connections between climate change and soil health.
The study has been published in The Geographical Journal. To view the full study,聽.
[Cover Image –聽” by聽Scottish Government聽is licensed under聽]
