When it comes to reporting climate change, there are basically three categories of media portrayal. The first comes from the ideological right, which denies and derides climate change at every opportunity and relies on truthiness over truth. The second is from the lazy, muddled and semi-respectable news sources epitomized by CNN, MSNBC, and Kaplan Test Prep Daily, which occasionally get the facts right but which also report more smoke than fire and see as controversial things which are utterly prosaic. The third is from actually knowledgeable news sources that are scientifically literate enough to know and understand what they’re reporting.
Climate blogger Joe Romm is one of the leading practitioners of the third category, and his write up of the umpteenth investigation into scientist Michael Mann’s work on the rapidly increasing temperature of our planet is typical of the genre. As with other fake climate scandals, the notion that Mann had acted unethically was first ginned up out of thin air by wingnuts in the employ of deep pocketed individuals who see climate change legislation as harmful to their interests. It was then picked up and reported by the useful incompetents that make up much of American journalism. By the time the flimsy story collapsed under the weight of its ridiculousness, only Romm and his ilk were still paying attention.
The only thing all three organizations have in common is that none of their audiences are the least bit surprised. People who understand climate change and don’t have a financial, ideological, or psychological reason to stick their heads up their asses know that controversies like this one are utter bullshit. People who don’t pay a great deal of attention remain confused. And people who have one or more of those motivations to stick their heads up their asses remain stubbornly cranium-inter-rectum.
This sorry state of affairs is unlikely to change any time in the next year or so, and certainly not before next November’s election. However, we know for certain that it is going to change eventually, if for no other reason than that climate change is real, and the denials of it are getting increasingly thin. So it’s worth asking: what might speed up that change?
For starters, we can write off category one (lunatics and lackeys) and category three (the sane and the uncompromised). The people in category three aren’t going to change because they’re dedicated to reporting reliable and verifiable information, and the only way their story is going to get altered is if climate change turns out to be all wrong, which is about as likely as the Tea Party deciding it loves Kenyan socialism. The people in category one aren’t going to change because they are the Tea Party and they’ll hate whatever they think of as Kenyan Socialism ten years after they’re dead.
That leaves the mushy headed, status seeking wretches of category two as our only avenue for progress. What’s it going to take to get them to start ignoring category one and reporting like category three? It probably won’t be the weather. The summer of 2011 has been so typical of climate change predictions – massive droughts, huge storm systems, record breaking temperatures – that you’d almost think it was scripted. Similarly, it’s hard to see how any new kind of global consensus or scientific data will have an impact after everything so far has failed to penetrate their thick skulls.
If they’re immune to both data and anecdote, then the only thing left is personal experience. Whoever has editorial control at CNN needs to be dragged to a ski resort that’s going to be high and dry in ten years. The powers that be at MSNBC need to be put on a boat and given a tour of the soon to be ice free Arctic Ocean. Kaplan Test Prep Daily may be hopeless, but surely the executives of other news organizations wouldn’t object to climate catastrophe junkets courtesy of some environmental group. And if they do object, target their kids. The people in charge of category two media probably have a lot of offspring in their teens and twenties who’d leap at the chance for an all expenses paid trip to some parts of Earth that have been radically altered by global warming. As any parent can tell you, a little filial harassment can go a long way.
Giving rich kids free vacations may not seem like an ideal or fair course of action. But until major American media outlets get their climate editorial policies out of the dark ages it’s going to be damn near impossible to get worthwhile legislation passed. And serious Congressional action, to subsidize green energy, tax carbon emissions, and encourage efficiency, is already decades overdue. Category two is going to come around sooner or later, and anything that makes it sooner is well worth it.
