Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Michael Mann, inventor of the iconic Hockey Stick Graph, is concerned that TV networks might have been “compromised” into downplaying the climate crisis.
Why has climate change been ignored in the presidential debates?
While we rake over Clinton’s emails and Trump’s late-night tweets, climate has been the elephant in the room, leaving scientists and campaigners asking why there hasn’t been a single direct question about the crisis.
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“I’ve been shocked at the lack of questions on climate change. It really is fiddling while the world burns,” said Kerry Emanuel, a leading climate scientist. “This is the great issue of our time and we are skirting around it. I’m just baffled by it.”
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have yet to face a moderator question on climate change during two debates in which time was found to grill Clinton repeatedly over her use of emails and to ask Trump about a series of late-night tweets he sent about a former Miss Universe’s sex tape. Lester Holt, the moderator of the first debate, was reportedly set to ask a climate question but ran out of time.
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“It’s like a sort of collective cowardice,” said Emanuel of the omission. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist, added: “One has to wonder if television networks are compromised by the millions of advertising dollars they take from fossil fuel interests.”
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Mann is not alone in wondering whether the media have been bought off – high profile British climate commentator George Monbiot asked the same question back in August.
Like many climate hypothesis, this conspiracy doesn’t hold water when you examine the evidence. There are plenty of hardcore greens in the media, including high profile presenters who have no qualms about embracing green extremism, who would vehemently reject any attempt to buy them off on climate issues. For example, back in 2014 MSNBC seriously discussed forced reeducation courses for “deniers”.
The real reason climate doesn’t attract more media attention is rather mundane, not nearly as exciting as Mann’s dark criminal fantasies. Back in 2014, senior NBC executive Patrick Burkey offered the following explanation.
“Weather coverage can drive ratings,” Burkey said, but “you have to be careful that you’re not covering weather stories that aren’t real news every night. It’s an easy way to lose the trust of the audience about what is really an important weather story.”
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/tv/article4446150.html
Bottom line, if climate advocates want more airtime, they need to make an effort to say something newsworthy.
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The main reason might be that climate change has dropped off the map on the public opinion polls. Although the mainstream media tends toward the left of the political spectrum they follow the polls like its their bible. So they dropped the issue. The trend is now on the climate skeptics side, not Mr. Mann’s (and the catastrophe will never come regardless).
Mann is correct- the media are compromised. Only they are compromised to help him peddle his self serving apocalyptic clap trap. So even when Mann happens to be right, he finds a way to still be wrong.
It is mostly because poll after poll shows it is the voter’s least concern. Who wants to campaign on something the voters don’t care about? Hillary has probably been campaigning too much about it, but it is a sop to the ultra left, so they don’t do something crazy like vote for Jill Stein.
I think after 20 years of nothing happening, people have completely lost interest.
Unlike government, media doesn’t have a captive audience.
If they continually bore/offend their audience, the audience will leave.
Mann is a salesman, like Bill Nye, they are kind of like Ghostbusters. You have to believe in the problem they are selling solutions for in order for them to make any money. They see an existing overall public disdain for big oil companies, and the simple scientific phenomenon of the green house gas effect, and they package it into a fear sales pitch. They know the media will eat it up and spread the fear for them because they love a good story with a hate-able bad guy and a message that we need to “take care of our planet”, what a feel good story! So they get free commercials from the media, but the more they get the better off they are, so they have to keep egging them on. They could pay for their own commercials but that hurts their bottom line too much, so they egg on the media, saying they are cowards, etc., trying to get more free commercials. Their Ghostbuster business is paid speeches, government grants, sales of articles and books instead of catching ghosts and putting them into those little boxes, but its the same idea. They are GlobalWarming Busters. And they are a business. Who ya gonna call!
How I see it. The MSM has been railing on about CAGW for years. Whenever there is a weather extreme, they link it in to ‘climate change’. However, for the last year, the MSM has been singularly focused on Trump vs Clinton. Trump doesn’t appear to believe in CAGW, so doesn’t bring it up much, and Clinton knows that it is very low on most peoples priority list, and if it is going to cost them money, they don’t support the fix. So she is not widely discussing her plans. She mentioned it after Hurricane Mathew, but that was about it.
Once the election is over, and the Clinton love it is over (assuming she wins), expect the MSM to resume there CAGW propaganda.
LOL….could it because climate change barely registers on polls asking people what is most important to them?
Boo hoo….I threw a climate party and nobody came.
Those who promote the green/progressive movement are many things, but they’re not stupid. Mann might wonder why Hillary and the Democrats haven’t made climate change a focus of the debate, but their approach is smart and cautious. With so many undecided/independent voters tuning in, there’s a real chance that the Green Climate Fund would be examined in detail. People might roll their eyes at “10 meter sea level rise”, but privately they might still think that the issue is a real problem even if it is being exaggerated. The GCF, however, is different. The idea of sending $1 Trillion per decade to the UN to be redistributed to countries like Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan and Venezuela, might inspire some to abandon the Democrat’s agenda entirely.
Best to leave that issue alone and focus on things that don’t sound quite so ludicrous.
Interest will pick up again when the court cases begin and various “leading climate scientists” (the ones shouting “Wolf!” the loudest) are in the dock. That’s what I’m waiting for.
The media knows the result of the UN’s online “My World Poll” showing climate change to be dead last as an issue of concern out of 16 issues raised, and a Pew Research showing climate change is an issue of concern to the American electorate. Hence, the issue will not attract readers or viewers.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
Correction: Pew r\Research Poll shows Climate CHange is an issue of MINR concern to Americaneletorate
Of course Michael Mann and his hockey stick have become the poster child of denailers…the irony is that the characterisation of temperature, CO2 increase, CH4, population and a hundred other metrics as “hockey-stick” shaped are quite accurate.
And of course there is the reverse hockey stick like Arctic ice extent, which BTW, along with Antarctic ice extent are at there lowest extents evah for this time of the year. But please, ignore and continue to demonise a piece of wood.
Perhaps Mann could start his own TV channel, but he may find that like Gore’s Earth Day tv event, no one will be bothered to watch.
Oh they get their propaganda out there plenty. The National Geographic Channel is getting ready to feature
‘Years of Living Dangerously’
I suggest Mann and company visit WUWT, we cover global warming/climate change every day.
Look at him ! Would you buy a used car from this guy? His hockey stick is pure BS.