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Reheating the Climate Change Story
The media have dropped climate change, with its tricky science. But cast in economic terms, it could recapture public interest
Here's a climate conundrum: while scientists declared 2010 to be the hottest year on record, media mavens have been afire with the fact that US media coverage of climate change dropped precipitously, or as the popular Daily Climate blog put it, "fell off the map". 2010 was a scorcher of historic proportions, so proclaimed Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the World Meteorological Organisation, but the quantity of media coverage on this pivotal issue plunged to pre-Inconvenient Truth levels.
As a revealing snapshot, 5,000 journalists attended the recent North American International Auto Show in Detroit, whereas only 2,000 accredited journalists attended last month's COP 16 climate-change summit in Cancún. But beyond the number of gumshoe journalists patrolling the climate change beat, the plummet in coverage also came about because global warming is no longer perceived as novel and dramatic. Climate change is a slow-burning tick-tocker of an issue marked by incrementalism, slathered in arcane science, and often lacking whipsaw political theatre. The "hottest-year-on-record" media morsel hasn't held its fresh taste.
In the month straddling the UN meetings in Cancún, US media heavy-hitters - the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC and NBC - offered in aggregate less than 200 stories that tackled climate change in a minimally substantive way. Incidentally, another media world is possible: the Guardian, in fact, ran more stories mentioning climate change or global warming than all these US media outlets combined. Like other long-term, seemingly intransigent issues, climate change has lost its media mojo. But there is a way to rekindle its sex appeal: economics. Thomas Carlyle may have dubbed economics "the dismal science", but economic issues work the US public into a tizzy, routinely topping the list of concerns in "most important problem" public opinion polls. Environmental journalists could leverage this public opinion fact to help jolt us out of our climate slumber and bring the issue into focus in a way that makes clear how climate disruption will affect all of us.
So far, journalists have done nothing of the sort. In the month surrounding the Cancún conference, the US media outlets mentioned above turned to economists as news sources in a measly two articles. That's right, only the comments of Robert Stavins of Harvard University and David W Kruetzer of the conservative Heritage Foundation wedged their way into the media discussion of climate change. That translated to less than 1% of all sources. Clearly, journalists could do better.
Since its release in 2006, the Stern review on the economics of climate change has forced economists, environmentalists and political wonks of all stripes to acknowledge the impacts climate disruption could inflict on the global economy. In the US, for a long time, the gold standard for modelling the economics of climate change has been William Nordhaus's behemoth Dice model. To his credit, Nordhaus opened his books to other economists for inspection, which led to a slew of principled criticism that he was understating the intensity of economic impacts. Turns out, assumptions are where economists hide the good stuff, or at least, where they quietly cram uncertainty.
Reframing climate change as an burning economic issue could help journalists breathe life into the most important - and complex - issue of our time. Without getting mired in the morass of elaborate mathematical equations and the arcane economics-speak of "discount rates", journalists could turn to independent environmental economists for honest assessments of how climate change will affect the global economy. For instance, Economics for Equity and the Environment Network, or E3 - a wide-ranging coalition of academic economists - has a strong track record of translating the mind-numbing humdrumism of economics into lively, comprehensible analysis in everyday language. The Real Climate Economics website stockpiles over 100 up-to-date, peer-reviewed economics articles that support the aggressive emissions reductions scientists recommend.
Aside from the beyond-the-pale advocacy journalists at Fox News network - who are under explicit instructions from their superiors to inject climate change scepticism into their reporting - environmental journalists understand the gravity of climate disruption. And there has been significant improvement in the quality of coverage, with the US media casting aside their "balance as bias" approach, which, for years, meant putting pseudo-scientists and their benefactors on equal footing with independent climate scientists and their peer-reviewed research.
The downturn in the quantity of climate change media coverage is no small matter, since it affects public perceptions about the seriousness of climate change: if an issue does not remain on the public's mental fingertips, concern dwindles and urgency becomes overkill. Plus, it allows our elected leaders to squirm off the political hotseat. But as the world burns, quality matters, too, and journalists have - right there, in front of them - a short-term solution to the quandary of covering climate change: economists who can lend climate disruption the gravitas and drama it deserves.
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30 Comments so far
Show AllSuch a telling indicator of the perversion of the u.s. thought process and priorities. Just as many argue the cost of war in terms of dollars, so too the planet.
The problem is in moving to real costs, ie long-term costs. As is, we have allowed short-term thinking to dominate. There are major costs and inconveniences involved with the changes necessary. Just as many republicans are now (oh so conveniently) bring up deficits as something of grave importance, we must focus on our children's and grandchildren's hardships from the coming climate catastrophe.
Dick Cheney never met a deficit he didn't like...now, almost as if the IMF dictated the message, Austerity is the only "way forward". How easily the "Will of the People" is ignored as both duopoly parties rush to embrace the new "reality". With Obama leading the way as Betrayer in Chief.
Buck, I could not have said it better myself. That is exactly how I feel.
God, it's just so depressing.
It isn't just the United States that is ignoring climate change. World-wide the issue is not seen as important. Jobs comes first, followed by political debate, and then soccer, other sports, and celebrity news. As pointed out in the article, climate change is incremental: we are the frogs slowly being heated in a kettle of water and no one is completely aware how this is going to end. Much as I am tempted to join Buck in his excoriation of America, I cannot: It is human nature that is at fault, not the character of one nation's people.
Call it what you like: western culture, modern culture, whatever. It is not the result of all people's actions, not human nature. It is learned through acculturation.
hey, brother Buck!
to join you and drosera...jobs come first...yes...why?
because the land has been stolen, and the holders require money to inhabit...
this is neither natural, nor learned, but the outcome of crime...
the sad fact, as Buck nailed in his initial foray, is that, while we may have arrived here as victims, we have become accustomed to our current configuration, and do not, now, want to get our hands dirty learning to live 'lower'...
dinner at the club is so divine...
always want to be sure I point out the guys with guns...they stay in the back, and quiet, so as not to be noticed...
make no mistake, though, they are there...
Obviousman, signing off for now...over and out...
I'm just stating facts: people care more about earning a living than the preventing a future scenario in which the Earth will become a much degraded place. It isn't just Western culture: China is just as bad--not to mention the Middle East. Human beings generally want economic security, good health, and a long life. The environment comes afterwards.
drosera, you are stuck in a western wealth based mindset. Earning a living means providing food and shelter for oneself and family, however extended. Economic security is nothing more than feeling there will be food and shelter available tomarrow and the next day.
People from all points can fall into the illusion, the ruse of modern capitalist culture, the illusion of endless prosperity, material wealth, and an easy entertaining life for the masses, and great wealth and power for the corrupted few.
It is not human nature to defecate in the kitchen. The truth of environmental degradation is suppressed, and commonly substituted with contrary lies depending on the culture one is influenced by.
War? What war? Is the United States involved in a war?
Buck's comment is the best one that I can imagine making.
But a quick review of comments made about the Stern report indicates that the critics of the climate models should take a look at the climate economics models. They are based on at least as many assumptions as the scientific models.
I get the impression that economists know much less about what is going to happen to the economy in the next year, decade, century due to climate change than climate scientists know about what is going to happen to sea level, weather patterns, etc. in the same time frames.
Future commodities:
food, clothing, shelter/land, energy, water
bullets until they run out
the issue of climate change is obviously of longer term than corporate media news cycles like to deal with, they of "keep the viewer entertained" paradigm.
reporting on the pocket-book context would add a potentially interesting wrinkle to this "story" but would in the end become subordinated to business as usual.
as with most information gathering, one couldn't do much worse in the realities and repercussions of global warming than searching the msm, as coverage is so routinely only skin deep (the dead layer).
only when it has sufficiently "burned a hole in the pocketbook" will gw attain its appropriate status as ongoing catastrophy in the making.
Follow the literature and prepare as appropriate.
Like it or not, you are discussing a walking corpse. And it will not be recapturing the public's interest.
When they find out whats been going on by regulation and stealth law the last few years, (light bulbs, removing A taxing energy in effect, etc my guess is they are going to be quite pissed off.
New studies coming out are not supporting the old theories, weather patterns are not supporting old theories and claims, contentions that no matter what the weather patterns are, they prove Global Warming is not helping.
Reframing the Global Warming arguments as "Climate Change" won't fly either.
Like it or not, the issue is a walking corpse.
Are you sure you'd rather be paid in cigarettes, asbestos insulation and lead paint? We're more accustomed to dealing in cash.
Deny the Link Inc.
mighty is right in the sense that people will deny any conclusion that comes into conflict with their preconceived notions--global warming would not be accepted if the very fires of hell made the Earth barren. It would be the Earth's orbital position or volcanoes or the sunspot cycle that was responsible, never anything they did. The only hope is the young--they might be able to look at the situation with fresh eyes.
Alas, we are a weak species after all: it is our shared (mis)interpretation of phenomena that must be preserved, not our need to develop new ideas as conditions change. The reason we work so hard to deny reality is that we build our egos from the sense that we are always right, an attitude that strengthens one's belief in one's self even as it undermines the coherence and solidarity of the community.
the ego is always the last casualty in a conflict
but usually the first cause
The most annoying thing about this right-wing troll mightymite is that he spouts this nonsense at every opportunity, yet never responds to our rebuttals. I guess we end up talking over his head or something.
New studies coming out also "prove" that the earth is only 10,000 years old. Boy will the paleontologists and the astronomers who study galaxies billions of light years be quite pissed off when they find out how they've been bamboozled all these years.
Science is, like, so twentieth century.
NOAA statistics show that 2010 was the hottest year in the 130 years they have kept records of temperatures around the world. Meanwhile, several countries are making plans to deal with new situations that will develop along with the eventual melting of the arctic ocean.
Sadly, the world is full of idiots who think that the fact that it's really cold in the northeastern United States disproves global warming, and the "mainstream" media is not up to the task of educating them.
You're a fool, midget pest (mm), if you think news coverage determines the future of the climate, the planet, and that of your sorry and ignorant self.
read this for a minute: http://www.desdemonadespair.net/
Perhaps your head will recognize its posterior insertion. Pro'lly not.
Anyhoo, since you're a natural born hemorrhoid, I'd bet lots of people are sick of you.
How about your pathetic self? How long can you put up with it? You ambulant cadaver.
Click on the highlighted section of the first sentence in the second paragraph - "only 2000 accredited journalists attended - "
Owing to safety and security reasons, accreditation has been LIMITED to 2,000 .....
WTF ... we understand that the MSM ignores environmental issues ... but why is Boykoff blowing smoke up our asses.
This is way too serious an issue. There are reputable people reporting on the environment. We do not need a second rate political science professor misleading us.
The elephant in the room is that the public has figured out this hoax and the Old media can't keep a straight face spewing such nonsense. They can't afford to lose more viewership/subscribers.
Economically climate change is affecting Oregon negatively.
1. Loss of wheat to rust has increased.
2. Loss of wine grapes to another fungus infection, boytritis has also occurred.
3. Increase in low oxygen zone off the Oregon coast with a concomonitant loss in bottom dewellers has occurred.
The above have been reported in the Oregonian. The total acreages, tonnage, percent harvest lost, and economic value lost has not been reported.
The effect of rising temperature and associated increasing humidity has not been reported for all agricultural and forestry products.
Big Hel-lo to the Koch-funded boiler room climate bloggers.
The record snow in the Northeast this year is climatologically consistent with an ice-free, extremely warm, moist Arctic Ocean atmosphere. No one event is strong evidence, but like the snow piles, it mounts up. Happy shoveling to all.
Intimately tied to Climate Change is its true source-
rampant overconsumption of fossil fuels.
The ECONOMIC story which is happening now and was a major
factor in the 2008 financial crash is that the world is
either at or beyond peak oil (and "peak everything"!)
see the Nation's excellent series on this:
http://www.thenation.com/article/157434/peak-oil-and-changing-climate
Peak oil is impacting us economically right now.
If oil goes above $100 per barrel it will bring any economic
recovery to a screeching halt.
Yet the Corporate Media and even many progressives and Greens
ignore it.
Actually US greenhouse emissions have gone down since the Great Recession as driving plummeted with $4.50 gas, factories closed, etc.
The Sierra Club rightfully points out that 95% of US transportation is based on oil. But once again they are in denial - their solution? Electric cars and better fuel economy!
Even though an electric car takes as much energy as a house and still requires vast resources to maintain 8 lane highways, stadium sized parking lots,etc etc.
The auto addiction is just too much to give up...
But it will not be a choice as oil prices soar.
Michigan may have already pointed to the future when it
turned some paved roads back to gravel as it could not afford to repave them and last year cut its roads maintenance
budget by 50%.
Will we get the alternatives running so we can still somewhere in time or not?
Oddly, in spite of the oil price spike, gasoline prices dropped abruptly by about 8 cents/gal over the weekend.