The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2013
This is just painful to read and realize that people are supposed to trust their president.....yeah right. Believe in science and trust the scientists for once in your life Mr. Trump. Anyways, back on track with the media issues that we face. The graph below does a fantastic job of depicting the striking amounts of the media's climate change coverage that was devoted to talking about Trump's administration's decisions about climate change.
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| This striking graph shows just how much air time is being devoted to Trump. Credit: Media Matters |
This is very valuable TV time that could be spent in so many other more constructive ways, such as educating people about climate change or informing them of the effects that we're already dealing with today. Additionally, even with 2017 being one of the worst years for weather and climate disasters, national broadcast networks rarely talked about or demonstrated to the viewers that there is indeed a link between climate change and extreme weather events. Hurricanes Maria, Irma, and Harvey provided perfect platforms to leverage the correlation of extreme weather events to climate change. People could see the impacts and the damage first-hand from these hurricanes, so connecting these disasters to climate change might encourage a few more viewers to realize how important it is to try to reduce human-caused climate change. But instead, we just talked about Trump some more.
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| A graph shows that Trump played a huge role in what was said about climate change this past semester. |
Additionally, most of the TV networks' climate change coverage was about climate change denial. This, of course, stems from the ideals of the Trump administration but was also exemplified when networks such as CBS and PBS brought guests on shows who flat-out denied that human activity causes climate change. That's only going to create more uncertainties and debate among the public, not help to solve problems related to climate change that need to be solved. Additionally, by focusing on all of these negatives (which it seems like the media overall has a knack for) they neglected to point out some of the positives within the field of climate science, such as new research findings or different ways we can work to solve climate change.
Clearly, the way that we're currently communicating climate change to the general public is not working. Climate change has ballooned into a political issue where people are choosing sides without looking at the facts and many people still don't really understand what is happening. So what's next?
Scientists are positive that climate change is real and that humans are the main cause - we've filled libraries with facts and research about all this. But sometimes facts don't work. We tend to only focus on issues that are personal, abrupt, and facing us now. Unfortunately, for most people, climate change does not check all of these boxes. The map below shows results from Yale's Study on Climate Change Communication about the percentage of adults who think climate change will harm them personally. More than 50% of American's don't think that it's their problem - rather, that it's a problem for future generations.
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| Yale's Program on Climate Change Communication map of people who think global warming will harm them personally. Credit: Yale |
Climate change is something that happens gradually over time and always seems to be in the future, not clearly defining the impacts that it will personally have on us. This is why it's tough for many Americans to realize that climate change is something that we need to do something about NOW (it's the "everything seems fine to me" approach, where people don't realize something is wrong until it's too late to act in order to solve it).
And this is where the media comes into play. Climate change is often talked about in the future tense; not with any urgency that effects are being felt right now. If more people communicate better with each other about the complex problem that climate change is, maybe, just maybe we can convince more people to do something about climate change NOW.
The graph of climate coverage vs Trump-related climate coverage was an interesting little tidbit of information that I hadn't seen before. I think it says a lot that, despite all of the climate news in 2017, Fox News chose to solely focus on that news related to the Trump administration.
ReplyDeleteI find your statistic that almost 80 percent of coverage regarding this immense issue is dedicated to Trump’s silliness, rather than actual updates and scientific research shocking! I never would have guessed that this is so skewed. And to make matters worse, giving Trump and those who deny climate change so much of the spotlight, actually encourages them to keep making these outrageous statements. And this will only snowball! If all we see on TV is our president declaring that climate change is a Chinese plot and a hoax, then that may come to be what we also believe. We definitely need to reform news coverage of climate change and focus on educating Americans with the facts.
ReplyDeleteI always found that the media was a sore subject in relation to any form of actual news broadcasting. What usually ends up happening with the many different channels for news is that reports are biased and trying to stir up a nonexistent issue at times. With your multitude of examples where the media was used to highlight the President's opinions on climate change, any reader can understand that the media is more focused on the ratings they will receive if they put an adversary of climate change with high status on the air to spout their opinions despite the many others and the facts that are being underrepresented. For this exact reason, I would find it more helpful to look at foreign news reels, from Europe for example, that are more likely to display an unbiased opinion of our country, or at the very least both sides to one story. In this case, America is not the only country that plays a part in climate control; however, I do believe you are right that our media needs to step up its game and focus on the matters that are important instead of ratings.
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