Introduction
Influential media outlets encouraged the division of climate change in the United States. For example, in 2019, broadcasting networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX dedicated a mere 0.7% of airtime to talk about climate change. However, those 238 minutes spent discussing climate change were not all accurate. According to a study done by The Guardian, Fox News, a popular conservative news outlet, is only 28% correct when it comes to accurate climate coverage. Popular liberal news outlet NBC is 70% accurate on its climate change coverage. Whether or not a media outlet is designed to reinforce liberal or conservative beliefs, 238 minutes of climate coverage over the course of an entire year is unacceptable when climate change is the largest threat to our planet and global economy.
July 29, 2019 marked the earliest “Overshoot Day” in history. Yet these were some of the most popular headlines on that day across all media outlets: Shooting at Festival in California Kills at Least 3 (NY Times), Trump Steps Up Attack Calling Cummings a ‘racist’ (The Week), Jamie Lee Curtis’ Golden Globe Ensemble Goes Viral (Fox News), British Boy Becomes Fortnight Millionaire in World Cup tournament (The Guardian). Top headlines on this day failed to mention anything regarding the fact that humanity consumed more ecological resources than the Earth can regenerate by July 29, 2019. In other words, we used up all the Earth’s resources for one year in 7 months. I wondered why this was not a story covered by the media. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes once tweeted, “every single time we’ve covered climate change it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great”. Journalists and reporters should not need incentives to deliver information that the public needs to know about. The deeper question is why is climate change a “palpable ratings killer”?
The world is chaotic. Media coverage is consumed with coronavirus, war, political unrest, riots, and protests. Society and the media have disqualified climate change as a subject worth discussing. I was raised to take responsibility for my actions and was held accountable for them. The media has never been held accountable for portraying an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the world. Media fuels the bombardment of propaganda that is designed to distract and entertain rather than educate and inform. Most people in this country only know what the media chooses to tell them and unfortunately climate change is not something people want to hear about. Therefore, the media is happy to provide distractions from the bigger picture. No person or institution should ever define the boundaries of knowledge and facts that every human has the right to know.
People fear what they do not understand. When I got to high school, I learned about the future of climate change and it scared me. The future appeared so depressing I did not want to learn anymore. But then I realized, ignorance may be blissful but choosing to be ignorant is choosing to be a coward. I made the decision to learn more. I did research outside of school and discovered that the more I understood Earth’s systems and how humans were disrupting them, the fear subsided. Rather than seeing problem after problem, I see solution after solutions. Maybe if climate change coverage included news about all the solutions that are being developed every day, it would give people hope and help them engage.
Media ratings may be less when discussing climate at first but that should not mean the topic is swept under the rug. The more time the media dedicates to accurate climate segments, the more people will become engaged and curious. Pew Research Center found that 55% of United States citizens watch or listen to the morning news. The only way to depolarize the climate change conversation is by having the conversion, and popular morning media could be the place to start.
The truth is most U.S citizens don’t identify with the extremes on either end of the spectrum. In April 2020, the Center for Climate Change Communication found that only 33% of people identified in extreme categories. Meanwhile, 67% of people were moderates in the conversation. Yet, the opposing extremes are all the media focuses on. The media has fabricated a single story. This not only applies to the climate change discussion, but to healthcare debates, immigration policy, and gun control just to name a few. The country will never not be divided if the media refuses to portray the full story.
Knowledge is freedom, and media outlets have failed to use their resources to properly inform people on climate change. It is up to us to do the research. Find the reliable resources and educate ourselves. We can normalize the conversation by bringing the topic to the dinner table with family and friends. Climate change is not a forbidden subject, it is okay to discuss and debate, disagree, and agree on solutions, ideology, and policy. Any type of conversation on climate change is better than silence.
