I was reading an article in Heated, published on July 11, 2023, with the provocative title “Oil Companies Are Laughing While the World Burns.” Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkin are the co-authors of this piece published on June 11, 2023. But It was the subtitle or deck for this article that really got me: “And the news media is once again failing to connect the dots.”
What this deck got me was wondering why “climate change,” which is increasingly and quite appropriately being shifted to “climate crisis,” isn’t covered like war, or at least as war gets covered if we happen to be interested in it or, like World War II, involves everybody. War makes good copy and typically gets people reading—that is, buying papers or otherwise handing over money to get past paid firewalls.
Like a lot of climate change posts and articles in recent weeks, the long run of extra hot days was referenced as an example of how climate change is covered by the media, which is to say, not covered by the media. The authors point out that the three main TV networks (admittedly, not the triumvirate they used to be) of ABC, CBS, and NBC ran 123 segments on the seemingly ever-expanding heat wave and only in seven of those reports was climate change even mentioned. Unfortunately, the big cable networks of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News did no better, with the score of 187 segments aired and only eight mentioning climate change.
Samuelson and Atkin call this failure to tie the extreme heat to climate change more than an oversight, but rather misinformation. Their subhead, “Misinformation by Omission” had me flashing back to old Baltimore Catechism lessons, but that association makes their argument all the stronger, as far as I’m concerned.
Their article takes an even sharper turn toward indictments, however, and again a subhead sums it up well: “Amid record heat, oil companies double down on inaction.” A damning quote from Shell CEO Wael Sawan and another by TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne is as much proof as any reasonable person requires to conclude the fossil fuel industry has only its own interests at heart. Of course, one could note the record profits earnings of $457 billion last year or profits of nearly $100 billion in the first quarter of 2023.
A number of climate crisis leaders have moved to reject the very concept of working with the fossil fuel industry, with Al Gore making headlines this week targeting oil companies at the recent Detroit TED Countdown Summit 2023, reportedly saying, “Do you takes us for fools?” when discussing the claims of fossil fuel companies support of climate amelioration.
I am encouraged by this turn. There is no time to be anything other than clear, and that clarity must include not only the historic record of the fossil fuel industry to ignore and suppress information about climate change’s causes from fossil fuels, but also requires hypercritical attention to fossil fuel’s current efforts, especially when it comes to tracking the actual capital spending on new fossil fuel resource development. I am discouraged by the poor coverage of climate change generally, and specifically the practical consequences of silence on the fossil fuel industry minimizing the connection of climate change to their business.
We—that is to say, human culture—are at war for survival, but the mainstream media remains too quiet about the crisis. The current state of coverage—or rather, lack thereof—makes me think of the sinking of RMS Lusitania by torpedo by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War, imagining if the story hadn’t gotten much ink. Perhaps the Kaiser would have been wiser to spend a lot of German ad money on American newspapers of the day, and possibly keep the US out of the war.
Instead of playing nice, the news media should cover the actions (and inactions, too, of course) of the fossil fuel industry for what it is—a significant negative force in our existential conflict, but then the media—and the politicians, too—would have to earn their dime the old-fashioned way, serving the people they purport to serve.
Well, anyway, thanks to Heated for getting me hot under the collar. Keep it up!