Reports on Heat Waves and Flooding Usually Neglect to Explain Why They’re Happening: Study
Despite ample reporting on extreme weather events, a majority of news outlets still did not link these events to their cause: climate change.
Vivek Shandas on Climate Disruption & Heat Waves, Jamie Kalven on Laquan McDonald Coverup
There’s a way to tell the story of heat waves that connects to policy and planning, but that centers human beings.
‘That’s Lethal, Communities Completely Exposed to This Kind of Heat’
“Wealthier communities have been designed to have more trees, because of a variety of racial covenants and redlining policies.”
As Drought Grips California, Networks Come Up Dry on Climate Science
When California’s drought was covered on network TV, global warming was rarely addressed, with just three mentions on ABC, two on NBC and one on CBS.
Network TV Continues Giving Climate Change Cold Shoulder
Focusing on the cold Northeast winter, network TV has almost completely ignored the West’s record-shattering winter warmth–and failed to discuss the human-caused climate disruption the connects the two phenomena.
Weather From Another Planet: Wildfires and Climate Change
Extreme drought, extreme heat and extremely devastating wildfires in Southern California are big news for TV journalists. But don’t mention climate change.
It’s Cold Outside, So CNN Debates Climate Change
Right from the beginning, the January 6 episode of CNN‘s Crossfire sounded like a bad idea. Here’s the announcement that aired at the top of the show: How far below zero does it have to get to cool off the global warming debate? To make things clearer, the top of the show announcement continued: This […]
TV News and Extreme Weather: Don’t Mention Climate Change
Dramatic weather-related disasters are ready made for TV news. But what’s not on the screen? The human-made climate change that is affecting, and in some cases exacerbating, that extreme weather.
Weather—Without Climate
A new FAIR study shows that even when covering weather events that scientists suggest are linked to climate change, the news rarely mentions the changing climate. Out of 450 TV news segments about extreme weather, just 16 even mentioned climate change.
Attributing Weather Events to Climate Change Is the Easy Part
Climate change caused Typhoon Haiyan–in the basic and obvious sense that Haiyan would not have happened in the absence of climate change.
Typhoon Haiyan and Climate Change: Why ‘We Can’t Say for Sure’ Is Wrong
In a rational world, Typhoon Haiyan would get media talking about climate change. But at the moment, it’s barely part of the conversation.
NYT Leaves Readers High and Dry on Causes of Mississippi Drought
Nowhere in the New York Times’ discussion of the reaction to what an accompanying graphic calls the “historic drought in 2012” is there any mention of what is changing our history: the climate change caused by global warming brought on by human alteration of Earth’s atmosphere.
Ignoring Climate Change When It Stares You in the Face
NBC Nightly News asked a serious question the other night–and then gave a not-so-serious answer: Why it is so cold where it should be warm, and so warm where it should be cold? What is going on with all this extreme weather?” Its answer was true as far as it went–but it didn’t go any farther.
How’d You Like That Hurricane We Made?
Writing about journalistic treatment of the superstorm and climate change, CJR‘s Curtis Brainard (10/30/12) criticizes the New Yorker‘s Elizabeth Kolbert for the wrong reason. He takes issue with her statement (10/29/12): As with any particular “weather-related loss event,” it’s impossible to attribute Sandy to climate change. However, it is possible to say that the storm […]
CBS’s Anti-Science Weather Expert
What would you call someone who insists the Earth is not warming, but cooling? Or who recommends that a media outlet “cool the global warming mumbo jumbo”? On CBS Evening News, they call him an expert–the network’s “severe weather consultant.” Florida TV meteorologist David Bernard makes frequent appearances to talk about weather and climate on CBS Evening News and other CBS News shows. As FAIR and others have noted, recent TV coverage of weather disasters tends to downplay the effects of catastrophic climate change.
Do You Change the Weather When You Change the Climate? Yes
Once you’ve altered the atmosphere, every single weather phenomenon–every storm, every dry spell, every unremarkably pleasant day–is a result of that altered atmosphere.
