Climate change affects everyone, but the stories that resonate most are the ones that hit close to home. Sabrina Shankman, a climate reporter at The Boston Globe, emphasizes the importance of making climate change a local issue to engage communities more effectively.
“Climate change is a human story,” Shankman remarked during a panel discussion at the Schiller Institute Convening Space. “So just [remember] the people, and always [come] back to the people who are affected.”
This discussion was part of the “Climate Is Every Story” panel series, which aims to foster conversations among journalists and academics at Boston College about covering climate-related issues. The event, titled “The Climate Crisis Is Local News,” was moderated by Amber Williams, a senior news editor at the New York Times and a Boston College alumnus. The panel included three faculty members from the college.
Yi Ming, a professor of earth and environmental sciences, highlighted the local impacts of climate change such as altered monsoon patterns, which have significant effects on underdeveloped communities in the Global South. “The Earth’s temperature has warmed by 1.5 degrees,” Ming explained. “So that means, if you have 1.5 degree warming, then you’re going to have 10 percent more water vapor in the air. So when it rains, it just rains much, much heavier.”
Shankman often finds herself explaining the significance of the 1.5-degree Celsius increase to readers. She views her role as that of a “climate interpreter,” guiding people to understand the broader implications of what might seem like a small number. “I feel like my job is regularly to take people’s hand and be like, ‘We got this,’” she said. “‘Together, we will understand this.’”
Understanding the climate crisis through numbers can be challenging for many, Shankman noted. The stories that truly resonate are those that focus on personal experiences and local contexts, making it easier to understand global issues. “If I’m writing about a polar vortex that Massachusetts is experiencing, I might be starting with Sue Davis, whose house is freezing cold and whose kids have never seen anything like this,” she said. “But by the end of the article, we’ve also traveled to the Arctic. We’ve looked at extreme rainfall in California. We’ve looked at how a bunch of events around the globe appear to be related to this phenomenon.”
Catherine Hoar, an assistant professor in engineering, applies this approach in her teaching by using local examples to clarify complex topics. “I’m currently doing research with the Charles River Watershed Association on an urban stream in Newton, and so [I’m] bringing students to that stream, taking samples from that stream, seeing how it floods, looking at pictures,” she said.
Neil McCullagh, executive director of the Carroll School of Management’s Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action, believes in the power of local storytelling in his work. He cited faith-based zoning as an example of how telling the stories of individual families impacted by housing initiatives can be more compelling than numbers alone. “If you tell the story of how Habitat for Humanity has worked collaboratively with a faith-based organization to create 13 units of housing, and then you tell the story of those 13 families being able to have a better life and access local schools, then it touches home,” McCullagh said.
Amber Williams, who started her journalism career covering scientific topics, remarked on the effectiveness of visual storytelling in climate reporting. “My experience of covering climate over the years has always been extremely collaborative with visual departments,” she said. “Data journalists and visualization experts, infographics, photography, illustrations can actually tell us the story way better than your words probably would.”
Williams also encouraged aspiring journalists to engage with climate stories, regardless of their primary focus. “So for the aspiring journalists out there, I really encourage you—even if you don’t see yourself as a science or an environmental or climate reporter—to try and take those opportunities to do those stories,” she advised. “Because they’re absolutely going to come up, no matter what newsroom you’re in and no matter what your role is.”
Original Story at bcheights.com