A recent survey by the Pew Research Center showed that the vast majority of Americans support new measures to combat global warming.
More than two-thirds are in favor of encouraging the use of electric or hybrid vehicles and imposing taxes on corporations based on their carbon emissions. New regulation mandating increased use of energy from renewable resources would have 72% support, and 79% favor government tax incentives to help companies in carbon capture and storage projects.
Concern about the environment has been growing over the last decade and, in June, a survey by the YouGovAmerica company revealed that today 56% of the population identifies as “environmentalist”. So why are only 30% of Americans interested in following environmental news?
The political polarization in the US — and also the corruption of politicians bought by special interests — help to explain how the country is split in half in support of Joe Biden’s shrinking environmental agenda, which is being assaulted not only by ultra-conservatives in the Supreme Court but also by himself. broken. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, sold to the coal lobby, took the coup de grace that this month killed an environmental legislative package linked to the BBB (Build Back Better) plan.
It’s hard to keep the attention of the public already beset by bad news about the economy and health with doomsday predictions. But the uninformed, consuming a denialist diet like the one served in the US by Fox News, are not primarily responsible for the lack of support for combating global warming; it is the media narrators who treat science as ideology.
The US Federal Environment Agency was created by Richard Nixon, a Christian Conservative. CNN’s industry correspondent recently compared Rupert Murdoch’s network anchors to saboteurs blocking the exit of a burning theater.
If journalism wants to be treated as a public service, it is up to journalism to better contribute to unraveling the fallacy that environmental science is “left-wing.” If in the first half of 2020 the catastrophe of the pandemic threw reporters from all sectors into the coverage of a virus, the time has come to stop sectorizing environmental reporting.
All coverage has an environmental aspect in a world where weather-related events already kill 5 million a year and devastate economies of any size.
One obvious obstacle is that scientific reporting requires a greater degree of specialization. Another is to better articulate the reporting of facts in the context of environmental destruction. The financial commentator who only describes the figures when the government needs to intervene in the Louisiana insurance market because storms and hurricanes have rendered 600,000 homes unbailable must not omit how science explains the economic debacle.
The environmental narrative has never had so many promising news available with scientific progress in environmental protection. Balancing the news between sacrifices and rewards is a power that journalism has to rescue science hostage to populist autocrats.
