Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Quantity over quality: According to University of Gothenburg Assistant Researcher Áine Kelly-Costello, climate reporting can no longer be left to people who have made an effort to understand the subject.
Why climate change must stay on the news agenda beyond global summits
December 9, 2021 6.21am AEDT
Áine Kelly-Costello
University of GothenburgDuring last month’s COP26 summit, climate change was a ubiquitous story. News hooks abounded, from unpacking the flurry of non-binding pledges to reporting on the failure of rich nations to honour demands of countries at the frontline, criticising the summit as the “most exclusionary COP ever”.
Even in today’s crowded information landscape, mainstream news media continue to play an important role in shaping how we understand and act onclimate change.
Based on research interviews with climate reporters, I argue the main stories are about climate breakdown and climate justice, and entire newsrooms, not just science and environment specialists, need to step up to demonstrate that understanding.
This needs to be reflected in the quantity and quality of climate coverage, well beyond the brief window of COP summits.
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While specialist expertise does matter, the lion’s share of climate coverage can no longer be left to a handful of science and environment reporters.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-climate-change-must-stay-on-the-news-agenda-beyond-global-summits-171845
What can I say – its difficult to imagine how already dismal mainstream media climate coverage could get even worse, but if news rooms follow Áine‘s advice, I’m sure they’ll manage somehow.
She is completely correct.
The specialist environmental journalists depend on an alarmist – if it bleeds it leads – narrative. They have no role without everything being worse than the day before, that was already the end of the world as we know it.
Other journalists (who can report calmly as their jobs are not on the line if this story fizzles) would bring interesting perspectives on the issue.
Could an economics journalist report on CO2 tariffs in the West without reporting the effect on our trade?
Could a political journalist report on banning coal without reporting in the effect of job losses on the US electoral college balance?
Could a science journalist report on climate model projections without reporting on the uncertainties?
I think she has an excellent idea.
What you have to remember is that most journalists do not have any ability to distinguish fact from fiction in the subject they are reporting.
I would hazard a guess that 95% of the MSM have no qualifications in science or maths beyond the age of 18, in the UK it’s worse, most drop science and maths at 16
“most journalists do not have any ability to distinguish fact from fiction in the subject they are reporting”
Which is why the good ones will mention that there are different perspectives on the topic.
Most journalists have less intelligence and certainly less moral compass than a shithouse rat.
My guess is 97%
Which can be easily verified by the percent of reporters that have quoted that number in the past!
Good catch, Eric. I sometimes watch CNN International and they are one of the leaders in the clueless idiots reading a script they have no idea who prepared, they are just told to read it and act concerned. The tendency is for these self-rightous talking heads is to finish the comments with an explanation of how the problem is the fault of Donald Trump.
“the problem is the fault of Donald Trump.”
The Leftwing Media is fixated on Donald Trump. They fear he will undo their socialist paradise (and he will), and so the Leftwing Media is on constant attack against Trump. And it will only increase as the elections get closer.
I see five or six hit pieces on Trump every day on the newsfeeds. It just shows how much the Left fears Trump. And with good reason, because Trump may still be in their futures. I can hardly wait. 🙂
I am still amazed (not really) on the hit pieces that are still aimed at Trump. The MSM’s hit pieces back a few years ago are one of the reasons he got elected. They just can’t keep their collective mouths shut!
Steve Clough,
OK. You make three statements but you don’t say if you want “the MSM” to make “hit pieces” or to “keep their collective mouths shut”.
Richard
They haven’t been able to penetrate his kevlar suit. The best they have been able to do is knock him down and bruise him. To their horror, he keeps getting back up. With the stupidity characteristic of their profession, they keep trying the same things, with the same result.
“To their horror, he keeps getting back up.”
I think that is literally the truth. They are horrified.
Trump being re-elected would do serious mental damage to a lot of leftwing extremists. That’s on top of the mental damage they already suffer from, just by being leftwing extremists.
There is no known cure, or even a treatment, for TDS.
That’s bad for those afflicted by TDS because Trump’s poll numbers are improving in every category. He currently leads Biden by 10 points, and leads all other potential candidates by even larger margins.
The Democrats last time won the Hispanic vote by about 20 points. The current polls show the Hispanic vote split 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans.
Trumps approval rating among Republicans is now higher, at 95 percent, than when he was president, at 88 percent.
It’s looking bad for the TDS sufferers. It’s looking good for the future of the United States.
“I argue the main stories are about climate breakdown and climate justice”
That is utterly meaningless postmodern doublespeak.
But you must admit, musn’t you, that it is tough to be left without a climate after yours has broken down…
After your climate breaks down, you have to have some climate justice.
I want to say these people are nuts. There, I said it.
I want me some climate justice! Gonna get me some more of that filthy lucre!
If they didn’t have utterly meaningless postmodern doublespeak, they’d have no speak at all!
I love this “failure of rich nations to honour demands of countries at the frontline” idea.
I’m happy to consider honouring requests if they are backed up with good reasons and I have the means to do so. ‘Demands’, not so much.
I’m not sure about this “at the frontline” bit either. If we are talking about impoverished states in Africa (for example) then the increase in atmospheric CO2, which has already created new “green” land twice the size of the US, must be benefiting agriculture and if it isn’t it is almost certainly because eco-activists are opposing modern technology.
Where is the evidence, except in the mindset of those same activists, that given the same opportunities the rest of us have enjoyed for decades (and longer) those on this mythical “front line” will not be able to cope with whatever the ‘climate’ throws at them just as we do and have done forever.
It’s little short of patronising to assume that rich nations need to make themselves less rich on the (unspoken) assumption that the rest of the world is poor and incapable of doing anything about it.
Environmentalists actively stand in the way of development (think ‘golden rice’ or the World Bank refusal to fund coal-fired power stations) and then demand that we put our hands in our pockets to offset the poverty caused by their actions.
To your good point, Newminster, the USA sending millions of Covid-19 vaccines to African nations shows 2 things: There is assistance for counties at the “frontlines” of actual issues, and that the global perspective of we all would be better off if this was stopped and not allowed to fester in a location that offered the potential for future break-out. The CAGW nonsense lacks the idea that we should disable ourselves in order to save countries supposed to be on the “frontlines”, like Tahiti?, because there is no actual threat.
I don’t think the picture has changed all that much since I made this map which shows that covid is not a serious problem in most of Africa. The aid would be better spent on proper power stations.
I guess they have less tests in Africa.
Curious: what other diseases does a positive test with no symptoms constitute a “case”?
Sorry hun but no
The incessant ravings of you and your ilk are now having The Exact Opposite Effect to what you hope for.
You are making people ill, both physically and mentally – you are pushing them over the edge and as someone who:
Quote “campaigning on climate and disability”
and as an owner/operator of the ‘Social Gene‘ should know better.
Is that what you wanted – I cannot believe it is.
You know the answer, inside you hun, it’s there. Go with your instinct.
Who is “you”?
I am you and you are him and we are all together…
The job of a journalist is to ask who? where? why? what? how? and present the story impartially, without opinion.
Sadly, these days all we get is opinion without the 5 basic questions being asked.
Journalism is dead, long live churnalism
Yep.
Journalists don’t have to do anything but copy / paste the press releases that are invariably written & provided by the universities’ media relations departments for every paper that the journals publish.
Increasingly, press releases are issued even before papers are submitted for publication.
Climate reporting has become one if those never-ending TV soap operas where you can miss 6 months of episodes, then resume watching the latest show, but really you’ve not missed anything.
Six basic questions, remember “when”.
Pretty soon, ‘Climate Science’ article bylines will read, “By Ms. Watson’s 4th Grade Science Class.”
If I read correctly, our current six foot social distancing was evolved from a 16 year old’s science fair project.
Six feet distance taken from distance used in Satanic Rituals, Sacrifice . They stand SIX feet apart. NWO worship Satan.
The whole plastic straw panic was over a 9th grade (or lower) science fair project, so that wouldn’t surprise me.
We should be so lucky to have such an erudite source replacing our current ‘journalists!’
Ha! Really, Clyde.
The 4th graders are probably smarter than the jurinalists (Swedish pronunciation).
All you have to do is listen to daily weather reports on the radio or tv. Any day it rains, its a bad day. Sun equals a good day. Then they will complain about drought. I doubt the local forecasters even know what they are doing , they are all programmed to do it at a university. But they are conditioning people to expect an average day every day, and have no variability.
Here in Oz, they’re wailing about the rain now that there are no bushfires.
Because most people live on the coast, they see rain, and the associated flooding, as a disaster. Meanwhile, inland, the people that actually grow the food that stocks the coastal-dwellers’ supermarkets are mostly loving the life-giving rain. They literally cannot survive without it.
“Even in today’s crowded information landscape, mainstream news media continue to play an important role in shaping how we understand and act on climate change.”
In other words, the propaganda being blasted out by the media continues to play an important role in telling people what to think and believe and in nudging their behaviour.
Why is it that anything that comes out from The Conversation is patently barking mad? This Costello (without an Abbot) is seeking narrators to spread the word, not to understand anything.
“The BBC’s Editorial Complaints Department this week ruled that the Today programme broke BBC guidelines in February by inviting Lord Lawson to a debate with Sir Brian Hoskins, chairman of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change. It bizarrely claimed that his views are ‘not supported by the evidence’ — though he had pointed out, correctly, that the planet has not been warming for the past 17 years. Nevertheless, the BBC politburo warned, listeners should have been warned that Lord Lawson is in a minority and, therefore, his words ‘should not be regarded as carrying equal weight to those of experts such as Sir Brian Hoskins’.”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/in-apologising-for-having-nigel-lawson-on-to-discuss-climate-change-the-bbc-has-breached-its-charter
Costello, find your Abbott and make the comedy complete
Who’s on first?
One possibility to consider is that in a “Publish or Perish” environment, the academics who have difficulty getting published in mainstream journals turn to the less rigorous The Conversation, whose main criteria is whether the theme aligns with their liberal agenda.
“While specialist expertise does matter, the lion’s share of climate coverage can no longer be left to a handful of science and environment reporters.”
Haven’t these people done enough damage?
The climate crisis and the rise of eco-anxiety
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/10/06/the-climate-crisis-and-the-rise-of-eco-anxiety/
“Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/10/overwhelming-and-terrifying-impact-of-climate-crisis-on-mental-health
A mentally wrecked youth is clearly not enough for true believers
“A mentally wrecked youth”
This is a great crime perpetrated against our young people, who don’t have the experience or knowledge to put things in perspective.
It’s a crime against humanity.
The BMJOpinion is a supreme example of bias: “….António Guterres as a “code red for humanity,” the report’s alarm bells were “deafeningly loud,” spelling out the irrefutable facts that “greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation …” and many similar non-science quotes passed off as science.
The UN has not done ANY scientific research on the various climates around the world. Their founding objective has been “human caused” changes. There is NO research done that can actually ferret out the huge number of interactions in the actual climate or the assumptive climate models.
No wonder many people and especially students who have been taught unsupported ideas as fact have a hard time with “climate change”.
Much of the best(meaning useful) climate science has been done by meteorologists. Over the years many have done extensive work manually “pattern matching” the daily weather reports and in particular the various ways they merged and changed. Combined with modern computer techniques weather predictions as far out at 10-20 days(depending on exactly what is happening in the weather). All the hard work has resulted in reports that most laymen can use for bi-weekly planning.
The United Nations is almost all power politics with occasional bits of actual science when it a handy prop for the politics.
What in the world does this mean? I mean I know what they are demanding, but what is the front line of climate?
The Front Line is
Pacific islands
The Maldives
Etc
The Front Line includes those islands, but also all of Africa and Latin America and a chunk of the middle east, where all those “climate refugees” come from, who are trying to get into Europe and the USA to get away from the bad weather.
That’s why it’s incumbent on us to let them in. We’ll be helping to save the planet. /s
Etc is easier than listing the whole lot, don’t you agree?
The more typical claim for those coming from diverse parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa into Europe is political, sometimes religious. Escaping repression etc
I cannot speak for the USA, but in Europe and the UK economic migrants – aka refugees – are not climate driven.
I keep pointing this out. They typically have quite good clothing and smartphones. Often they hate being in France and risk their lives to cross the channel into the UK.
I cannot help but wonder why. Perhaps because ID is not required in the UK, whereas it is in most of Europe?
Mmmm! Holiday destinations
So, those islands that are actually growing and building more airports for more tourists to go and visit?
The front line of climate is any country that has not developed its fossil fuel infrastructure. The aim of the battle is to stifle such developments.
IOW, Eco-colonialism / racism
The onus is definitely being put on the under-developed nations.
It appears that the under-developed nations don’t want to stay that way, and are going to go their own way. And they should. They should require the UN and the other Overlords to prove that CO2 is dangerous to humans before they get cut off from fossil fuels.
The verdict is not in. The under-developed nations should challenge this assumption. They will have to do so, because the developed world has bought into the narrative, and this is putting pressure on the under-developed world.
There’s no evidence CO2 is harmful to humans. Under-developed nations should ask the “authorities” to explain this discrepancy in the plan, before moving ahead.
From the article: “Even in today’s crowded information landscape, mainstream news media continue to play an important role in shaping how we understand and act onclimate change.”
You’re going to shape me, are you?
The Propagandist goal is to shape the narrative. This is not news reporting. They shouldn’t be calling themselves journalists.
Yes, but they have to lie to you if they want to have any chance of you reading their propaganda. If they were to be truthful and call themselves propagandists, few people actually looking for news would bother to read the screed.
I just assume they are all propagadists until proven otherwise. That practice has served me well.
Yes. When a flood of propaganda doesn’t work, try a tsunami.
That’s what they are doing, flooding the zone. They have enough money and volunteer “reporters” to do it.
These are mainly leftwing billionaires that are behind dispersing all this climate change propaganda around the world.
I guess we should start calling them American Oligarchs.
They behave like Russian Oligarchs, who are in bed with the Russian government.
American Leftwing Oligarchs are in bed with the Leftwing U.S. government and its associated Leftwing/Authoritarian Washington DC Swamp. The billionaire wife of Steve Jobs, of Apple fame, being prominent among the activist American Leftwing Oligarchs.
Anything that includes “[leftist cause] justice” as a description is a lie. This researcher recognizes that keeping the climate change scam “in the news” needs way more hype over substance, requiring a propaganda effort beyond the means of professional “journalists.” The only tools in the Climate zealot toolbox are hammers, and their response to all opposition is always, “We need a bigger hammer.”
I see that the usual suspects have jumped on the spate of tornados in the US with the usual climate change attribution. Charlatans.
Never let human suffering go to waste if the agenda can be supported!
“I see that the usual suspects have jumped on the spate of tornados in the US”
Yes, we can count on any extreme weather event to be used by the alarmists as evidence that CO2 is dangerous.
It’s just Mother Nature. It happens all the time.
We hailed the Gottenberg press for freeing humanity by accessing the written word. Now this parrot brained idiot squawks from Gothenberg (different palce I know and famous for Volvos) her hysterical propaganda excrement. Ye gods! talk about a society in decline. Beware the end really is nigh and the totalitarian boot is ready for your neck
But Volvo is also deeply involved in solving climate change problems
I think Volvo (cars) are deeply concerned with making money. Yes, they did make very good cars, but now are mediocre cars compared to the rest. They did give the 3-point safety harness invention freely to the competition, saying that lives saved would be more important than money. That was when they were a family business, long since sold.
Then they have commercial vehicles (trucks, buses, heavy plant), and very good marine engines. These will almost certainly never go ‘green’ or ‘woke’, except possibly buses. Diesel will be the order of the day.
I think this happens already but unfortunately for her it is entirely of the vein of mocking alarmists
In my small world, my reading includes:
Rex Murphey
Conrad Black
John Robson
None of which are climate scientists or writers, they are simply purveyors of savage wit
Yes, less science more fantasy climate writing required
I should well imagine that most journalists haven’t the faintest idea about the theory behind why ‘greenhouse’ gasses are supposed to be warming the planet. They probably think that there are glass panels in the sky stopping convection.
Having any real knowledge about a subject is just SO inhibiting to one’s creativity that it has to be avoided.