Where's the Press?

Last Saturday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most definitive report ever on global warming -- saying that "warming of the climate is unequivocal." At the same time, three Democratic presidential candidates debated global warming and energy policy on stage in Los Angeles. The debate received almost no media coverage. No television station broadcast the event live, only an environmental web site did. Even the hometown newspaper, the L.A. Times, failed to place news of the debate on the front page, instead burying a story well into the first section.

The lack of coverage continues a media tradition of ignoring the significance of climate change to the next president of the United States: Tim Russert, on Meet the Press, has interviewed countless presidential candidates this season and has yet to ask any of them a single question about climate change. Read more here. In two presidential debates he hasn't once raised what many regard as the issue of our generation to a group that includes our next president, who will face an issue so vast that to address it will require completely revamping our economic and energy future.

Why is the press largely ignoring how presidential candidates would confront the most important environmental issue the world has ever faced? And why aren't voters demanding that candidates address the issue? Why isn't it headline news when Fred Thompson mocks the unequivocal scientific consensus by saying that perhaps Mars is inhabited by "alien SUV-driving industrialists" since hemispheric dust storms appear to be contributing to ice shrinkage on the red planet? (see here for an explanation of Mars and climate change; see here for Thompson's opportunistic distortion of the issue). And why aren't voters and the media demanding more of Mitt Romney than his statement that he believes the U.S. shouldn't act until China does? Is this presidential leadership? Shouldn't the U.S. have policies of engagement toward China on carbon emissions reductions? Under a Romney presidency would we face four or eight more years of inaction, inaction that means we'll almost certainly face environmental catastrophe?

Hilary Clinton's campaign recently faced intense criticism over news that it planted questions among the audience in a town forum. Yet the coverage largely neglected the fact that one of the planted questions was about how Clinton would attack global warming. Why can't the campaign count on voters to raise such an important question?

Somehow, the dire news about climate change that confronts us almost daily has yet to translate among the media and the public into a sense of urgency that the U.S. must act, and act soon. Without a sense of urgency, the next president of the United States will lack a mandate to impose the kind of change we must institute if we're to successfully slow the looming environmental catastrophe. The press has a vital role to play in this process. It starts with showing up to events like the Los Angeles climate debate, but it also must include asking hard questions of our would-be leaders, questions that force them to engage with the environmental challenges that lie ahead.

Comments

[TheKiddy]

John Edwards has several major endorsements from national environmental organizations because of his policy stands on global warming/climate control/renewable energy. But basically, he and his plan have been on ignore by the press. Why is that?

[realitytrumpsbull]

That's just it, the Pandidates won't, so, like
the impeachment thing, really addressing the
Varmint is going to be grass-roots. Speaking
of grass, Bush did mention switchgrass and
some other ideas on this...I have an idea
which I wish all the coastal states would
consider, tidal energy. The ocean bounces up
and down every 4 hours, if all the engineers
haven't moved to China yet then maybe someone
could call one of them to see about
conceptualizing some designs to take advantage
of this cyclic natural phenomenon...kind of
like they used to do when people drove sailboats
and stuff...

[outnow]

If there was a missing blond story the press would never let it alone. Global warming doesn't have any "sex appeal." Even when the waters rise over New York City, Rudy will be going around saying, "9-11; 9-11; 9-11!" This time he will have a scuba and be saying, "It never happened, it never happened!" Scott McClellan will be writing a second book: "Bush Made Me Lie - Again, Revisited."

Maybe a "drowning blond due to global warming" story would get their attention. Or, "Islamo-fascists cause mysterious climate change using secret ray gun," would grab some headlines. Short of that - good luck!

I did check the EPA website. The government admits that climate change is happening and that human activity was causing it. But until the Fox News admits it, it isn't true.

[VeggieCar]

I too, was alarmed that something as alarming as huge portions of populated areas would be under water, major water shortages, the end of agriculture in huge areas, 1000's of extinct species (possibly humans) in just a few hundred years could be caused by human actions. Even more alarmed that we have about a year to do something about it. And most press doesn't even mention it?

Maybe people think it's science fiction rather than science? Indeed, unfortunately, the UN has lost it's authority. Who has enough authority for us to get off out dead a**es and do something? No one I can think of. Perhaps Manhattan under water?
Of course, then it's much too late.

[3rdCitizen]

Listening to the right wing's reactions to the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is largely the result of human activities and that profound changes in our collective lifestyles are essential to avoid unprecedented catastrophes is either sad or funny, depending on you pov, and definitely pathetic. I imagine it's similar to the way people in other times desperately clung to their beliefs that the world was flat or that the Earth was the center of all creation in the face of increasingly incontrovertible evidence. For the right wing, this issue not only means having to do the intolerable -- admit that the liberal environmentalists were right and that they were wrong -- it also means giving up a central tenet of their conception of reality: that Earth's ecosystem is infinitely exploitable, infinitely resilient, and perfectly adapted in every way for the endless expansion of unfettered global capitalism ad infinitum. It must be like having to accept that your gangrenous limb really does need to be amputated. They're not there yet, so what we're hearing is the shrill twang of denial.
"The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks." -- Wallace Broecker (Scientist, Columbia University)

[twoton]

The problem my dear, is that they know something you obviously don't. Which is that global warming is not being caused by humans and therefore there is no hope for a "political" approach to stopping it.

The motto you need to adopt is, "Adapt or Suffer". That points you in an economic direction, not a religious or a political one.

[MitchW]

Why doesnt the media believe in the climate change hipe? Maybe its because of the source of the information, the UN.
Remember the oil-for-food scandal and recently, the exaggeration of the HIV numbers to increase funding?
You will need scientific organizations, not political ones to make your case. Irrespective of your view that a dire crisis is occuring with the climate, others disagree with you and may have a scientic basis to do so.
Further, for those that accept your claim- theres absolutely nothing a politician can do about the climate, thats why there will be no traction with this.

[jdm58]

My guess is, that none of the "press" wants their 401k to drop by forcing big business and big oil to do the right thing. They believe the lie that changing the way we live will cost too much.

[SamThornton]

I've been asking the same question (where's the press) since reading on a British paper's website last week, the IPCC announcement that global warming was irreversible and we ought to refocus efforts away from prevention toward amelioration. I've yet to see the slightest mention of this paradigm-changing announcement in the US press, print, cable, or network.

Perhaps it's because US media is waiting on publication of the final report. Given their track record of going off half-cocked on other issues, this seems unlikely. More likely, the information just doesn't fit into the owners' and editors' narrow little vision of the world.

[scooperss]

What press?

[hopeless277]

Do not be concerned about global warming. After a few hundred million people die from starvation and thirst, after the food supply drops by 90%, after the oceans rise and the lakes dry up, after thousands of species are driven to extinction, after all the oil wells run dry, after the resource wars and food riots, after the cities crumble, after some parts of the planet become uninhabitable, balance will be restored. As it always has been so it shall be again. Just without humans.

[mommadona]

It's not sexy.
It's like covering "Earth Day"
There's no gun, guts and gore. (Yet)

Where's the 'conflict'?
Where's that 'man bites dog!'

"(yawwwwwwwn)" - "Call us when the earth stands still, will ya? Right now, I have a call into Karl KKK Rove about his new eggie recipe..."

[dissolvethecorporation]

A huge elephant in the living room.