Over the last few months, there has been an increasing amount of coverage in the media on climate change. From the illegal hacking of the University of East Anglia emails, to the rate of disappearance of Himalayan glaciers, this coverage threatens public understanding of, and therefore action on, climate change.

In order to encourage a more balanced representation of the facts, i.e. that the scientific consensus remains that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, you can help to ensure that this side of the argument is also represented.

If you read an article in the press which you believe does not adequately represent balanced views on climate change, you can help by:

- Responding immediately to negative stories by adding counter-balancing comments at the end of their online articles.
- Responding immediately in a Letter to the Editor or to the relevant journalist
- If you keep a blog you could write about climate change, or even 'tweet' about it on Twitter.

How to write a letter to a newspaper

It’s important that everyone’s letter is different (then they can hopefully be published together) so we have not provided one set template. Instead, we’ve listed some ideas below to get you started. You can focus your letter on one or more (or none!) of these. Your letter doesn’t have to be long – from 100 to 250 words would be good. Make sure you reference the article you are referring to – e.g. “Climate Science in Doubt, 26 Jan” and include your name and postal address at the end of your letter.

When you’ve written your letter, email it to the relevant person (it’ll tell you in the Letters section of the paper how to send in your letters), marking it as a ‘Letters Page’, ‘Letter to the editor’, ‘Letter for publication’ or similar.

To increase the chances of your letter being published, if you have time, read some of the letters that have been published in the newspaper to get an idea of the length and style that it might be best to use.

How to add a comment at the end of an online article

Each online news website varies in exactly how to place a comment at the end of an article, but generally you will need to be registered on the site and will need to login to make a comment.

Keep your comment short and make one or two points related to the article, ideally reinforcing the overarching key message that climate change is happening and overwhelming scientific consensus has agreed this. Be prepared for the fact that other readers may make comments about your comment – (and people can be very opinionated!) if you do not wish to get drawn into an online debate with them, it is probably best not to respond to this.

Here are some ideas to get you started:
http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/10/feb/responding-positively-climate-cha...