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The Empty Press Room - How Corporate Journalism Happily Lost Interest in Climate Change

Medialens | 26.01.2011 22:47 | Analysis | Sheffield | World

In the media’s coverage of climate change, are we really still stuck on square one of some ghastly board game?


Global warming was recognised as a hugely serious problem as far back as 1988 when the United Nations set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then the science has become more solid, more detailed, in fact irrefutable: the risk of dangerous climate change has risen alarmingly, and the corporate media has continued to bury serious debate on what to do about it. According to NASA researchers at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, global surface temperatures in 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest on record.

‘If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long,’ says James Hansen, the director of GISS.

‘Global temperature is rising as fast in the past decade as in the prior two decades, despite year-to-year fluctuations associated with the El Niño-La Niña cycle of tropical ocean temperature,’ Hansen and colleagues report. (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, ‘NASA Research Finds 2010 Tied for Warmest Year on Record’, press release, January 12, 2011)

The very stability of the Earth’s climate system is on the brink. Even an overall global warming of two degrees Celsius (2C) would be ‘a guaranteed disaster’, warns Hansen: ‘It is equivalent to the early Pliocene epoch [between about 5.3 and 2.6 million years ago] when the sea level was 25 m higher. What we don't know is how long it takes ice sheets to disintegrate, but we know we'd be starting a process which then is going to be out of control.’ (Phil England, ‘Tax on carbon: The only wave to save our planet?’, Independent, January 4, 2011)

Hansen believes that the UN climate talks in Mexico last December were ‘doomed to failure’ since they did not address the fundamental physical constraints of the Earth's climate system and how to live within them. These constraints and – crucially - how they are under threat by a rampant system of corporate globalisation are taboo subjects for the corporate media.

Anything beyond a 2C rise may well be catastrophic for humanity. Runaway global warming could be triggered if methane deposits under melting Arctic permafrost were to be released into the atmosphere.

Kevin Anderson, the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is another senior climate scientist who is deeply worried:

‘There is currently nothing substantive to suggest we are heading for anything other than a 4C rise in temperature, possibly as early as the 2060s. ‘Yet over a pint of ale or sharing a coffee it is hard to find any scientist seriously engaged in climate change who considers a 4C rise within this century as anything other than catastrophic for both human society and ecosystems.’ (Kevin Anderson, BBC News, ‘Viewpoint: Small steps offer no respite from climate effects’, December 15, 2010, Last updated at 18:15)

Meanwhile, powerful states and corporations are accelerating the rate of planetary consumption. There are occasional nice-sounding ‘green’ promises and aspirations. But in the age of WikiLeaks and the Palestine Papers, we know that powerful and ugly interest groups are really in charge, wheeling and dealing for short-term power and profit behind the benevolent rhetoric.

 

Climategate As An Excuse For Media Disinterest?

Remember those leaked emails involving climate scientists at the University of East Anglia and colleagues around the world? The lazily dubbed ‘Climategate’ affair generated a huge media storm in a teacup with even the Guardian, the supposed flagship newspaper of environment reporting, culpable. In November 2010, one year after the storm broke, senior NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt noted on the excellent RealClimate blog:

‘as we predicted, no inquiries found anyone guilty of misconduct, no science was changed and no papers retracted. In the meantime we’ve had one of the hottest years on record, scientists continue to do science, and politicians.... well, they continue to do what politicians do.’ (Gavin Schmidt, ‘One year later’, RealClimate, November 20, 2010)

As Schmidt observes, before the hacking of climate emails the media had responsibly begun to avoid the wackier ‘global warming is a hoax’ advocates. Yes, sceptics were occasionally interviewed. But they were becoming slightly more reasonable, at least accepting that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, for example. Now, however, warns Schmidt:

‘since the emails were released, and despite the fact that there is no evidence within them to support any of these claims of fraud and fabrication, the UK media has opened itself so wide to the spectrum of thought on climate that the GW hoaxers have now suddenly find themselves well within the mainstream. Nothing has changed the self-evidently ridiculousness of their arguments, but their presence at the media table has meant that the more reasonable critics seem far more centrist than they did a few months ago.’

Schmidt cites a few examples of the corporate media driving the ‘balance’ of climate debate towards the cliff edge – and beyond:

‘[Lord] Monckton being quoted as a ‘prominent climate sceptic’ on the front page of the New York Times [...]; The Guardian digging up baseless fraud accusations against a scientist at SUNY [the State University of New York] that had already been investigated and dismissed; The Sunday Times ignoring experts telling them the IPCC was right in favor of the anti-IPCC meme of the day; The Daily Mail making up quotes that fit their GW hoaxer narrative; The Daily Express breathlessly proclaiming the whole thing a ‘climate con’; The Sunday Times (again) dredging up unfounded accusations of corruption in the surface temperature data sets. All of these stories are based on the worst kind of oft-rebunked nonsense and they serve to make the more subtle kind of scepticism pushed by [Bjorn ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’] Lomborg et al seem almost erudite.’ (Gavin Schmidt, ‘Whatevergate’, RealClimate, February 16, 2010; see embedded links in Schmidt's article for the original sources)

Ben Stewart, media director of Greenpeace UK, is clear that the media, and not climate scientists, are to blame for any extra public confusion or scepticism:

‘The public haven't read a thousand emails from scientists they have never heard of. The emails didn't change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate.’ (David Adam, environment correspondent, ‘How has “Climategate” affected the battle against climate change?’, Guardian, July 8, 2010)

Despite the massive media attention devoted to the leaked emails and to the absurd claims of extreme climate sceptics, public concern about climate instability rightly remains high. Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, accepts that there may have been some fallout from the media’s irresponsible reporting - a confused public easing off the pressure on politicians to reduce emissions. But on the seriousness of the climate threat itself, Ward says: ‘I haven't seen any evidence there has been any big change in public opinion.’ (Adam, op. cit. ). No thanks to the corporate media.

One Observer editorial last year noted correctly that the leaked emails had had ‘a disproportionate effect in stifling public urgency over climate change.’ (‘We must restart the fight against global warming’, Observer, August 1, 2010). Wringing their hands, the paper’s editors complained that it was ‘baffling’ why ‘it should be so hard to turn a matter of near certain scientific urgency into political action.’

Tragically, like their corporate colleagues elsewhere, the Observer’s editors appear oblivious to the corporate-driven greed of global capitalism that threatens billions of people. No wonder it is ‘profoundly depressing that the chances of concerted global action to protect the environment seem to be receding.’ It is a platitude and a slippery diversion to say, as the Observer does, ‘We must restart the fight against global warming’.

Where is the Observer editorial call to ‘restart the fight against corporate domination of society’? Where is their urging of mass action to oppose government and business policies and practices that are steering us towards the edge of the climate abyss? When the paper writes of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, ‘Their claimed ambitions to take a lead on climate change really are a worthy object of scepticism’, we may greet such an obvious statement with muted applause. But we should express the same scepticism of the Observer and the rest of the corporate media when it comes to the need for urgent, radical and far-reaching analysis and action on the climate crisis.

The Empty Room

Last month’s UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, were never going to save the planet. Indeed, they seem to have been regarded as a minor side-show by much of the world’s political leaders and news media. Amy Goodman of the US-based Democracy Now! was a rare exception with daily in-depth reports and interviews. Here is how she presented one item with a wry note of irony:

‘Well, I’m Amy Goodman, here in Cancun. We’re covering the UN global warming summit. You know, last year this time, we were covering the Copenhagen summit. The press room was packed. There were thousands of journalists. It’s empty now. I mean, it’s nice to have printers and computers galore, but with no one in the room but folks who are cleaning up and keeping it tidy and IT people galore, well, I don’t think this was just meant for me. But I think there’s a bigger story here about the lack of interest in the Cancun meeting as the world is getting warmer.’ (Amy Goodman, ‘Pressing the Silence: At the UN Climate Change Conference, the Media Center is Oddly Quiet’, Democracy Now!, December 6, 2010)

Goodman continued:

‘Am I being unfair? Across the hallway is the writing press room. Oh, it has seats for hundreds and hundreds of journalists. And there are now, what, maybe three? All this, as the earth gets hotter and hotter.’

Democracy Now! reviewed the transcripts of the previous week’s evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC. The Cancun talks were not mentioned a single time by any of the networks.

SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to: Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor

Email: alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/arusbridger

John Mullholland, Observer editor

Email: john.mullholland@observer.co.uk

Please blind-copy us in on any exchanges or forward them to us later at: editor@medialens.org

Medialens
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Comments

Hide the following 10 comments

Global warming propaganda

26.01.2011 23:17

When you start reporting that the global warming movement was kicked off with the help of oil billionaires, Maurice Strong and the Rockefellers, people may take your journalism more seriously. A Strong was a director of the United Nations Environment Programme, which set up the IPCC. Strong is a confidante of the Rockefellers. And how about adding global elite bodies like the Club of Rome, which invented global warming, and the Sierra Club?

The reason the media has dropped global warming was because politicians who were telling us that it is the biggest threat to the planet Earth couldn't be bothered to decide anything at Copenhagen. The media concluded that it couldn't be that important. The other issue is the weather. Many people don't understand why it has gotten colder in the WInter when global warming says it should be milder.

The idea is that global warming is scientifically solid is ridiculous. No peer reviewed scientific paper has been published that has shown that human CO2 has created global warming. Chinese representatives at Copenhagen couldn't even bring themselves to say that CO2 was the cause of global warming. They remain neutral. Global warming is no more than a hypothesis.

The only reason global warming is the 'scientific consensus' is because politicians made it so.

If the media is to cover this hypothesis, they should address the public's ignorance. After all the global warming propaganda, If asked most could still not tell you the:
- proportion of CO2 that makes up atmospheric gases
- (average) temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution
the increase of human CO2 in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution
- level of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that leads to runaway warming

Simon


@ climate change conspiracy theorist

27.01.2011 10:02

yeah, right.... so global warming was invented by oil billionaires, who stand to lose most if we cut down our use of fossil fuels? WTF? I guess they are also alien lizards in disguise who plan to kill us all off as well?

I don't think there is any controversy over the facts, even amongst most AGW deniers:

a) that CO2 forces global warming

b) that temperatures are rising

The only possible debate is over how much humans are contributing to this, and it should be fairly obvious that we are pumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

And just because the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere is small compared to the other gases doesn't mean it can't be having a far greater warming effect.

For debunking of AGW denier crackpottery, see  http://www.realclimate.org/

anon


"as we predicted, no inquiries found anyone guilty of misconduct"

27.01.2011 11:51

"as we predicted, no inquiries found anyone guilty of misconduct..."

Maybe not but :


Official inquiries into the ‘Climategate’ scandal ‘unsatisfactory’

A committee of MPs has described two independent inquiries into the ‘climategate scandal’ as ‘unsatisfactory’ because they failed to answer important questions about allegedly missing emails.

“The Committee is concerned that the Sir Muir Russell inquiry did not fully investigate the serious allegation relating to the deletion of emails and finds it unsatisfactory that it has been left with a verbal reassurance from the Vice Chancellor of UEA that the emails still exist,” he said.

Graham Stringer, a Labour MP on the Committee, said there are questions over how the scientists chose the figures they used to back up the case for global warming.

He said the ‘missing email’ may refer to how researchers tried to further influence how their science is accepted by the scientific community.

He said both reports had failed to answer these questions.

“It does not say this is the end of the scientific case for global warming but it does say that people at the centre of this research did some very bad science,” he said.

“It is not a whitewash, it is the establishment looking after their own. They are not looking hard enough at what went wrong.”

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8279368/Official-inquiries-into-the-Climategate-scandal-unsatisfactory.html

Also - with reference to this quote from the Telegraph article :

“It is not a whitewash, it is the establishment looking after their own. They are not looking hard enough at what went wrong.”

How many other enquiries carried out by 'the establishment' into wrongdoing by 'the establishment' do you agree with ? Do you agree for instance that Ian Tomlinson didn't die due to being assaulted by a police officer ? Do you agree Dr David Kelly killed himself ?



The truth is out there


learn your history

27.01.2011 18:52

@ climate change conspiracy theorist
27.01.2011 10:02
yeah, right.... so global warming was invented by oil billionaires, who stand to lose most if we cut down our use of fossil fuels? WTF? I guess they are also alien lizards in disguise who plan to kill us all off as well

Yeah, right..like I said most people are totally ignorant about the basic facts of global warming and can’t tell you the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere. It seems global warming climate change supporters are totally ignorant about the beginnings of the global warming movement.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Strong
Maurice F. Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC (born April 29, 1929) is a Canadian entrepreneur and a former under-secretary general of the United Nations.[1]
Born in Oak Lake, Manitoba, Strong had his start as a petroleum entrepreneur and became president of Power Corporation until 1966. In the early 1970s he was Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and then became the first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme….After the Earth Summit, Strong continued to take a leading role in implementing the results of agreements at the Earth Summit through establishment of the Earth Council, the Earth Charter movement, his Chairmanship of the World Resources Institute, Membership on the Board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Stockholm Environment Institute, The Africa-America Institute, the Institute of Ecology in Indonesia, the Beijer Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and others..

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The panel was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), two organizations of the United Nations.

Conspiracy theory? Famous quote from Maurice Strong: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.”

Why is an oil billionaire so interested in global warming? Why is the oil baron familiy, the Rockefellers, wanting to cut down on emissions from oil?

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/business/27exxon.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=davidrockefeller&adxnnlx=1296154082-CDgJSeo23whfVC/esm8r8w

Simon


OK, you tell us: Why is an oil billionaire so interested in global warming?

27.01.2011 22:40

I don't know why you are being so coy and evasive, but since since you brought it up why not just tell us what you think instead of obliquely referring to something - why IS an oil billionaire so interested in global warming?

I'll tell you the most reasonable explanation: one of the best ways to overcome an adversary is to co-opt it and neuter it from inside. It is basic PR advice to companies who have protests against them: engage with the protesters and invite them to meetings etc. so they become sucked into your world of compromise and bullshit and lose sight of their original goal.

How come tens of thousands of independent climate scientists agree that human-caused global warming is occurring, and the AGW deniers can only wheel out a few cranks?

anon


sunspots

28.01.2011 01:15

I've been keeping an eye on solar data for approx 4 years now. In this time the sun has just finished one cycle and has now entered another namely cycle 24. This cycle has had the slowest/quietest start on records that go back until what was known as the Maunder minimum. This was approx 70 years of no solar activity (sunspots etc) and also coincided with an extremely cold period.

We are due another minimum of this magnitude. My personal belief is that we have just entered the final cycle before this inevitable solar event. The current cycle will prove to be quiet and colder winters will prevail, especially in the northern hemisphere.

One more point, the last 4/5 cycles have been considerably active also. We have been through a prolonged period of heating which i believe goes someways to explain the rising climate. Climate science argues against this.

Qui Bono?

NUCLEAR POWER

nothing else, thats what it as all about, mark my words.

chilly willie


@chilly willie: you seem to be confusing weather with climate

28.01.2011 09:48

Climate is measured over time spans of hundreds or thousands of years - you can't really just look at a few years and make any meaningful judgements about climate. That is weather, not climate.

And I'm sure climatologists are fully aware of things like sun activity and other natural cyclical events affecting climate. Do you really think something you as an interested layperson have thought about hasn't occurred to any of the thousands of climate scientists who spend their whole lives studying this? It would be one of the very first things they would take into account when analysing climate change.

anon


What conspiracy??

28.01.2011 18:48

OK, you tell us: Why is an oil billionaire so interested in global warming?
27.01.2011 22:40
anon


I think what you are getting at is that my explanation is going to come under the category of conspiracy theory. And then you can say: ahaa, since conspiracy theories do not exist and the only people who believe them are mad, then I must be mad. And therefore we can just ignore the inconvenient fact that the global warming movement was created by the oil billionaire the Rockefellers and Maurice Strong.

Well, Rockefeller is a capitalist who supported bodies within the Soviet Union. David Rockefeller says in his autobiography that if people accuse him of acting against the US and in favour of some global government, he says they are correct. A congressional committee, the Reece Committee, did research into the big US foundations and concluded that they wanted to merge the West with the Soviety Union. And Strong is a self-confessed socialist, who made his money from capitalism.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_to_Investigate_Tax-Exempt_Foundations_and_Comparable_Organizations

 http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/21/us/rockefeller-gift-stirs-warm-soviet-response.html
Rockefeller Gift Stirs Warm Soviet Response

 http://hubpages.com/hub/David_Rockefeller_proud_to_be_an_Internationalist_and_Conspirator_in_Chief_of_the_Global_Empire
David Rockefeller proud to be an Internationalist and "Conspirator in Chief" of the Global Empire

 http://www.rockarch.org/publications/resrep/rosenbaum.pdf
Rockefeller Philanthropies in Revolutionary Russia
by Thomas E. Rosenbaum
This report originally appeared in the Rockefeller Archive Center Newsletter, 1989
As the new Rockefeller philanthropies of the 1910s and 1920s sought to meet their general goal of improving the well-being of mankind, they soon faced the challenge of how best to help people in Soviet Russia, a nation experiencing serious social and political upheaval. As foundation officers

I do not believe that the Rockefellers are socialists. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether their actions constitute conspiracy.

Simon


re: What conspiracy??

29.01.2011 14:38

You are still avoiding the question: why is an oil billionaire so interested in global warming?

I don't care whether the answer comes under "conspiracy theory" or not, I'm just interested to know the answer, which you seem determined to keep secret!

What did you think of my suggestion as to the reason?

anon


re: climate/weather confusion

29.01.2011 15:04

No

chilly willie