Global Warming and Sports Illustrated

Anthony was telling me last week how he thinks we’re reaching a tipping point in media coverage of climate change. And only a few days later, Sports Illustrated – one of the least likely magazines to take on controversial science – is running a cover story on global warming. The author frames the story not only within the assumption that global warming exists, but also adopts the view advocated by the latest IPCC report, that it is almost definitely caused by humans. Ostensibly about how climate change will change sports, the article seems to function as a call to action aimed at readers; it gives examples of how major sporting events are working to reduce the effects of their “carbon footprint” and how athletes are driving hybrid vehicles.

To be sure, it is interesting to see science topics covered by non-science based news outlets. More noteworthy, in my opinion, is a paragraph emphasizing how climate change has already affected us on an everyday level. This emphasis, coupled with non-scientific informants (as Matt Nisbet points out over on Framing Science) might increase heuristic processing of such scientific information, a topic Sharon has looked at in previous research. As such, these frames could increase existence beliefs among the unpersuaded.