In reporting climate change, Celsius just isn’t enough

The recent COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, put climate change at the top of the news, and the spotlight offers an extraordinary opportunity to educate and effectively engage the public in urgently needed solutions. As nations commit to climate action, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and media outlets should make a pledge of their own — to commit to include Fahrenheit in addition to Celsius in all public information and news reporting on climate change meant for American audiences.

This is not some kind of jingoistic, America-first request — rather it is a plea to make climate research and reporting more understandable to more people. Climate researchers typically report temperature data in degrees Celsius, and U.S. journalists and media outlets do not regularly convert the data to degrees Fahrenheit. Why not? News stories about the U.S. economy are reported in dollars, not euros or yen. And readers would find it strange to see distances reported in kilometers instead of miles. Climate reporting should be standardized to include Fahrenheit.

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2021, released last week, warns the world is “on track for a global temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.” Unfortunately, a nationwide public opinion survey conducted Oct. 26-27 by Public Policy Polling indicates most Americans are unfamiliar with Celsius or do not understand how to convert to Fahrenheit. Less than one-third (31 percent) of

voters correctly pick the equivalent degrees in Fahrenheit for a 2-degree Celsius increase in average global temperature.

With climate change, every fraction of a degree matters. The consensus emerging from the United Nations Climate Change Conference is that commitments made so far will not be enough to alter projected warming. A rise of 2.7 degrees Celsius converts to

an increase of nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Imagine your child with a temperature of 104 degrees. That’s the emergency we face with a planet on track for a 5-degree rise in temperature.

We already are experiencing the effects of extreme heat waves, drought, wildfires and sea-level rise. It will take an extraordinary global effort to avoid increasingly devastating impacts, like massive crop failures, the collapse of polar ice sheets, the loss of countless plant and animal species and habitable land for millions of people. Our failure to reduce emissions and limit warming will radically alter life for all of us and exacerbate inequality. For too many, Celsius underplays the problem we’re facing. It’s past time for a change.

The good news is more than two-thirds of voters (68 percent) say climate change is happening, while only 25 percent say, “Climate change isn’t really happening, or if it is, it is part of a natural cycle, not man-made.”

An overwhelming majority of American voters (85 percent) want media and news outlets to use either Fahrenheit only or both Celsius and Fahrenheit when reporting on global temperature and climate change. And this is a rare issue that crosses the political divide. Fully 82 percent of Biden supporters and 88 percent of Trump supporters agree that American media should be using either Fahrenheit only or both Celsius and Fahrenheit when reporting.

Climate change is the issue of our time. Researchers and reporters have an obligation to make the data as accessible as possible to American readers as we rise to the challenge ahead.