Pirate's Cove

The Stranger’s Katie Herzog is very vexed with this question, but misses the real answer

Climate Change Is Here. So Why Don’t More People Give a Shit?

During the last round of debates in 2016, presidential hopefuls spent a whopping 5 minutes and 27 seconds talking about climate change. That’s less than they discussed the national debt.

You’d think people, especially politicians, would be more interested in the single most pressing issue of our time—one that touches everything from public health to the economy to immigration to trade to the food we eat and the water we drink and the air we breathe. But no. Even a few notable exceptions, it’s just not an issue that gets all that much play in either politics or the media compared to everything—and I do mean everything—else. As Lisa Hymas pointed out recently in Grist, ABC’s World News Tonight, their flagship news program, spent more time covering the latest royal birth this month than they did climate change in all of 2018.

Still, while this may demonstrate some flawed priorities on the part of newsmakers, it’s not like most viewers are clamoring for more climate coverage. As MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted last year, “every single time we’ve covered [climate change], it’s been a palpable ratings killer. so the incentives are not great.” (Hayes was widely criticized for this tweet by climate activists, and his show has increased climate coverage this year, including a special with AOC about the Green New Deal. At an event with the Columbia Journalism Review this month, he said that while the special didn’t exactly break records for ratings, it was worth doing regardless.)

Even the media, which likes to trot out the prognostications of doom, can’t make people care, and when they go deep, people tune out

Part of the public’s lack of interest, I suspect, is that climate change can often seem hopeless. I wrote about it for two years myself, and now that it’s not my job to keep abreast of the melting ice caps, I find myself skipping over articles and news reports about anything remotely connected to the climate. I’ll see Elizabeth Kolbert has a new piece in the New Yorker about how half the world’s species are going extinct, and I think, “Great. I hope everyone else reads it. I’d rather watch reruns of The Hills.” It just feels hopeless, especially now, when climate change deniers are running the White House and instead of actually dealing with this monumental problem, we’re still talking about whether or not the phenomenon even exists.

Katie also delves into all the silly psychological type studies, how the issue seems “monumental in scope”, that people fail to take action when they feel helpless, and

So, what’s to be done if you want the American public and the politicians and corporations who run this place to really start caring about climate? For one, people who cover this stuff for a living could start offering more than just the bad news. Some media organizations have tried this by focusing on what’s called “solutions journalism,” but at this point, the vast majority of climate change coverage falls into the category of “We’re Fucked.” Writers offer the bad news, but no way to change it, but if we don’t offer some kind of hope, the natural reaction is to shut down and change the channel.

Once again a Warmist misses the obvious solution: practice what they preach. Show us the way. Show us that they’re serious by making significant changes in their own lives. As Instapundit was fond of saying “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis (in their own lives).” It may get rather tedious noting this, but, if your doctor was telling you to lose weight, eat better, lay off the soda, and stop smoking, yet was clearing overweight themselves, smelled of smoke, was drinking a soda, and was eating lots of donuts, would you listen?