Two news stories this morning that nicely illustrate how climate change is being covered – or not.
From The Sun, on page B3 of the hard copy:
Future wars to be fought for resources: DND
Energy and water shortages combined with climate change could provoke wars within the next 15 years, warns an analysis by the Department of National Defence. …
The draft report said that despite some “vigorous debates” about the pace, cause, magnitude and impacts of global warming, there “can be no further debate that global climate change is occurring.”
Crop failures resulting in mass migrations and starvation, along with rising sea levels from melting ice caps and other factors, would be among the impacts.
Hmm, sounds serious. But you won’t find this story by quickly flipping through the first few pages of the Sun’s online homepage, at least at 11 am this morning. That’s reserved for stories like “The 18 most luxurious golf courses in the world”
Of course The Sun is considered to be right of centre. Let’s try something further left – like National Public Radio in the U.S.
Here’s a clip from a piece from today’s Morning Edition:
Texas-Size Drought dries up Lake Travis
People in Texas are suffering through a major drought that’s putting pressure on cities, farmers, ranchers and businesses. It’s also impacting Lake Travis, which is near the capital Austin. The drought problem is complicated by water management rules.
You can listen to the story on this podcast. But here`s the significant quote:
” … over the last 15 years, the rice planting season has been getting earlier and earlier because the south Texas climate has been getting hotter and hotter.”
Now, wouldn’t you think this would be an appropriate moment to mention the words ‘climate change’? Apparently not, no matter how obvious the inference. Even on ‘liberal’ NPR, those words seem to be expunged from regular news coverage, reserved only for contested stories where doubt can be introduced as part of the ‘balance.’
Just a couple of illustrations of the point made by Al Gore in this Rolling Stone essay going viral this week – Climate of Denial.
(What is) the role now being played by most of the news media in refereeing the current wrestling match over whether global warming is “real,” and whether it has any connection to the constant dumping of 90 million tons of heat-trapping emissions into the Earth’s thin shell of atmosphere every 24 hours.
Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because it’s a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.
The referee — in this analogy, the news media — seems confused about whether he is in the news business or the entertainment business. Is he responsible for ensuring a fair match? Or is he part of the show, selling tickets and building the audience? The referee certainly seems distracted…
What is sad, and serious, is to see even how much of the media spectrum has been cowered into silence or omission – as much by how a story is placed, priorized or framed as by its absence.
It is frustrating to see the deniers get some much attention because they have money to do that sort of thing. The book “Climate Cover Up” is a good read. http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-cover-up is a good place to look for it. Stories in there include the author and scientists who have been taken to court by climate skeptics backed up by big polluters. Often those companies (skeptics) do not win but they just make the scientists go broke in the process.
I would hazard a guess that if governments and business were recognizing and responding to this predicament with the scale of the effort required we’d see more stories about the science and its connections to the increasing number of extreme weather disasters we are seeing. But, because it’s not a big political winner (e.g. when’s the last time Stephen Harper put “climate change” and “greenhouse gases” in the same sentence), challenges ideologies (e.g. when’s the last time Stephen Harper put “climate change” and “greenhouse gases” in the same sentence) and involves our personal consumption decisions and a potentially ugly future it’s not something a lot of us are willing to talk about, let alone acknowledge.
Then there’s the problem Tim speaks to above, which the following quote also gets at:
“… climate-related legislation is one of those things which will create a large mass of winners with relatively little present-day political clout (us, our children, and our children’s children), alongside a small number of losers with extremely deep pockets and extensive lobbying arms.”
(http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/05/03/the-depressing-politics-of-climate-change/)