Yawning in the face of Apocalypse

Present Tense:  Climate change is the "defining issue of our time", as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it in Bali this week. He is right, this is the greatest story of our time.

Which is why it seems a little churlish to ask this question: why isn't it the most exciting story to listen to?

It is not that the threat of global chaos and mass extinction is boring. Hollywood would be extinct by now if it were. But the snappily-titled 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change proved that this looming Armageddon is too often presented as if it is some type of bureaucratic conundrum.

There can be only so many times the average person will pay attention to talk of emissions and grams per kilowatt and percentage tonnes per capita. If it was possible to simply fly up there and stick a giant plug in the ozone layer, then it would be a little more engaging. But this is the language of intergovernmental panels - and intergovernmental panels are never Hollywood heroes.

None of which means that people don't care about climate change. They realise that it is a major problem that can't be left for future generations to sort out. They understand that it is linked with poverty and development. They pay attention to the personal impact - that they'll soon have to change their light bulbs; that they shouldn't litter; that it makes sense to collect bottles for the bring bank. And they raise important questions, such as whether they should pay to throw out the waste sold to them by multinational brands.

That they care is obvious in the change in behaviour by so many in the western world - where populations can afford the luxury of changing their habits.

It's just that when a lot of people gather for a crucial summit, it doesn't matter how apocalyptic the talk if it is mixed with the language of a box-making industry conference.

That it is hard to make something readable out of these figures and graphs and projections was clear in how the tabloids hardly bothered this week. The Sun's big story was "Rose West's Guinea Pig Murdered: Monster's Pet Killed in Cage". It did cover an environmental story, but with a hook that readers could engage with. And it made no mention of the Bali conference. "Millions fell in love with the noble creatures in hit movie March of the Penguins as they battled to survive in the coldest weather conditions on Earth," it reported. "But now the magnificent emperor penguins of the Antarctic are in even greater peril - because it is getting too WARM." Only the Sun could make the word "warm" seem so sinister.

There's a serious point to all this. The languages of science and economics are difficult ones for the layman to stick with, so making it easier for sceptics to speak more directly.

Increasingly, such sceptics are getting their place on the airwaves and in the papers, partly because they offer something a little more novel than the environmentalists, but also because their message doesn't need to be put across using percentages and per-capita figures. Those who warn of climate change must also explain that it's a complex issue, based on a variety of global, demographic and industrial factors. They must present apparently contradictory information. For instance, the sight of a polar bear drifting on a melted block of ice like a forlorn version of the Fox's Glacier Mints icon will always pluck the heart strings. But it is confusing to then learn that polar bear numbers are actually on the rise.

Sceptics, on the other hand, can prey on the complex language of science. They can offer clarity and simplicity by blaming global warming on such easily-grasped notions as "natural cycles", and only need to do this repeatedly until enough people begin to doubt.

This week, the Pope got in on this act, warning that the climate change theory should be based on firm science and not dubious ideology. (Let's overlook the fact that he could be talking about Catholicism there). It was born of Benedict's current mistrust and concern over atheism and rationality, but he's also feeding into a certain cynicism about climate change that is creeping into the wider public debate. The irony is that, ultimately, it will be the language of the science rather than the ideology that could lead to an unwanted twist in the greatest story of our time.