Even though people pay attention to images of oil-soaked birds in the aftermath of oil spills, researchers know that another, less perceptible, issue is the death of algae from the use of chemical dispersants after these disasters. Although people focus on shifting to hybrid cars to reduce their carbon footprint, researchers show that we also need to think about methane emissions from the global livestock industry. Though people promote the environmental benefits of digitization in our workplaces and media consumption, researchers remind us that this shift generates massive amounts of e-waste with its own ecological footprint. Despite nearly universal scientific consensus about the harmful impacts of climate change, government and the public keep ignoring it. Three environmental communication dilemmas help to explain: The scale of environmental issues, difficulties portraying environmental problems and a tendency to individualize problems. By recognizing how these factors structure media coverage of environmental issues, scientists and academics can strategically work with them as opportunities to play a greater role in public debates.
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