Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumCJR: Where Is The Press On Climate Coverage? "Not Remotely Close To Where We Should Be"
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Which brings us to the climate crisis. This summer, wildfires will ravage the American west. Deadly heat will pound the global south. Hurricanes will march up the Atlantic coast. Homes, and perhaps whole communities, will be lost. Crops and people will die. If the journalistic status quo holds, news organizations will respond by going into disaster-coverage mode, mobilizing their dwindling staffs to cover the crisis as it unfolds. Theyll take astonishing pictures of the destruction and hear heroic stories from survivors and rescue workers. Theyll tally up the economic costs and run heartbreaking profiles of families who died in their swimming pools while trying to escape the fire or children who were washed out to sea. And then, only after the work of covering the disaster is done, will they perhaps take a moment to examine why all this is happeningwhy these disasters are occurring, again and again, all over the world, with increased frequency and ferocity.
Theres a pattern here. The news business waits for news to happen when, in fact, we shouldnt need another Black person to be shot to start reporting on racism in the police force. Nor should we need yet another Category Five hurricane to flatten yet another community before we sound the alarm that the planet is on the brink of climate collapse. These are deep, structural stories that are all linked. Novel viruses like COVID-19 often begin in wild animals, many of which are coming into closer contact with humans because their habitats are being destroyed by deforestation, mining, and other extractive activities. The first line of infection is often among disadvantaged communities. The heat waves, droughts, storms, and other effects of rising temperatures almost always punish the poor and people of color first and worst.
WHERE ARE WE in covering the climate-emergency story? Not remotely close to where we should be. The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation, in partnership with the Guardian, co-founded Covering Climate Now a year ago because we were convinced that most newsrooms were not doing enough to tell the climate story. Over the past year, we have made impressive progress. Our partners now include more than 400 news outlets representing more than 50 countries, with a combined audience of roughly 2 billion people. Our collaboration has done weeks of joint coverage that yielded thousands of additional climate stories. During our first week of joint coverage, last September, Google searches for the term climate change were the highest in history. And some news outlets that are not Covering Climate Now partners also have upped their game, hiring dedicated climate editors, adding and deepening climate coverage, and including climate among the key issues in the 2020 elections.
And yet. And yet. And yet. While we have been heartened (and grateful) to see so many of our colleagues join this effort, we still dont sense the urgency that the climate emergency demands, especially as the 2020 election approaches. Our window to prevent catastrophe is closing fast. In some respects, it has already shut: at least three feet of sea level rise is inevitable by 2100, and possibly much sooner, scientists say, compelling the relocation of millions of people and trillions of dollars worth of coastal infrastructure around the world.
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https://www.cjr.org/covering_climate_now/climate-emergency-2020-journalism.php
c-rational
(2,581 posts)fast. In some respects it has already shut." It would have been so relatively easy if we had started with president Carter, or even Gore. The 'Corporation' will be our downfall, as it has no soul and cannot be put in jail.
Boomer
(4,159 posts)Waking up now is almost beside the point.
CatLady78
(1,041 posts)SCNine
(1 post)I think we certainly need more individuals to make a more aggressive approach to this crisis, it may seem like the regular person doesnt have the resources to do so but with enough dedication significant goals can be reached.
Response to SCNine (Reply #4)
mercuryblues This message was self-deleted by its author.
weaponeer
(10 posts)of both the people and the press. The press concentrates on whatever will get them the most eyeballs at any given time (to sell to their advertisers) and the public generally goes along and fixates on the latest shiny object. I wish that wasn't so, but that's what decades of observation tells me.
Still, I think the awareness will grow over time, as things get worse, and it starts to really affect more people. Too bad that by then it will probably be too late.