Keeping climate action afloat in changing media tides
CHRISTINA LUKE: Within his first hours of office on January 20th, 2021, President Biden reentered the United States into the Paris Agreement, marking the country’s initial steps toward reasserting its international environmental leadership. Considerable difficulties lie ahead in America’s climate change undertaking, particularly the ability to curry domestic support and congressional cooperation. It is difficult to imagine a time before my generation existed where lawmakers collaborated on environmental issues and created successful reform. In the decades since, environmental reform has become increasingly elusive and steeped in partisanship. While this shift can be attributed to a number of explanations, one of the most monumental influences is visible to us daily: the rise of social media and the transformation of the U.S. news.
A Hole in the Sky
On Mar. 30, 1988, a thick New England accent rang through the room of a Senate Environment Joint Committee. “I just want to congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, for pressing on with these hearings,” said Senator John Chafee (R-R.I.) to Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) “It seems to me this is something that we all have to give our constant attention to, and be helpful in every way, and press forward to see if we can move this Montreal situation along in the reduction of the CFCs – not only nationally, but worldwide.”
Months before the committee was assembled, an international treaty called the Montreal Protocol received universal ratification in September of 1987, effectively phasing out the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in consumer products in order to counter the chemical depletion of Earth’s ozone. The ozone, an essential atmospheric layer, protects life against harmful ultraviolet radiation. Researchers at the time noticed rapid depletion above the Antarctic region and feared that the weakened ozone would further progress over populated regions. As the U.S. Congress continued to respond to scientific updates in the years following, representatives actively pursued more comprehensive policies and urged further international pressure. Abundant press coverage was complementary to the Hill’s bipartisan effort in bringing attention to the ozone, as front-page stories and television specials presented exhaustive scientific findings and policy approaches in a way that was digestible to the public.
In the midst of one of the most successful worldwide environmental policy initiatives, concerns were also emerging about another ominous phenomenon: global change, or climate change as it later came to be called. Why wasn’t this environmental cause able to advance at the same pace as its ozone counterpart, and why is it still struggling to gain footing in the U.S. political agenda today?
In the decades since the first measures were taken to heal the ozone over the South Pole, America’s similarly polarized political atmosphere has reached dangerous levels of its own. As news practices have adapted in response to America’s magnified polarization, traditional media has found itself making way for more opinionated coverage. In the storm of charged commentary and politically-aligned sources, climate change, seen increasingly as a partisan issue, has lost its potency as a fact-based, universal problem within U.S. political discourse and policy action.
Media organizations in the 1980s implemented strategies that directly connected the public to the issue of ozone depletion. In a 1986 episode of “In the News,” CBS aired a colorized satellite image, portraying what came to be known as the ozone “hole.” On a dark television screen, a gridded globe centered around Antarctica slowly became consumed by a blooming deep-pink void. This breathed life into what was in reality an invisible layer of thinning protective gas. After the ozone “hole” was coined, atmospheric depletion was not just a distant environmental phenomenon, but an actively progressing threat that could “widen,” “reopen,” and, as stated in one 1991 New York Times article, “stir health fear.”
Putting a face to the name wasn’t the only strategy implemented by news organizations. Media outlets provided straightforward summaries of scientific processes and emphasized the ways in which ozone depletion intersected with everyday American life. Footage of beach-goers, picnicking families, and crop fields rolled through the “In the News” episode as it explained the harmful effects of heightened ultraviolet exposure. Images of grocery shelves lined with hairspray cans, baristas pouring coffee into foam cups, and car hoods popped open for air conditioning repair flashed by as the segment introduced the scope of products containing CFCs.
But most importantly, clear and nearly unanimous calls for action reverberated throughout prominent American sectors and within media coverage. News publications centrally featured the conclusions reached by the scientific community, leaving little room for skepticism. In 1986, the attribution of the ozone hole to man-made chemicals was reported as a “welcome consensus” within scientific and business circles.
Following the Senate Environmental Joint Committee of March 1988, 42 senators, nearly half of them Republican, demanded that President Reagan urge global partners to take even more stringent action in eliminating CFCs by setting a definite timetable for CFC production cuts. Economists took on daunting industry challenges in phasing out the cheap and widely-used chemical, proposing policymakers implement tradable production entitlements to CFCs. Scientists tirelessly searched for chemical alternatives and devised pilotless missions to further explore Earth’s ozone.
Today, the ozone has healed considerably and is projected to make a full comeback, with some scientists predicting a return to 1950s levels by 2080. However, when observing the success of media coverage and public strategies in reducing CFCs, there still remains an enigma. The international treaties, economic policies, scientific innovation, and calls to action appearing in the late 1980s all seem eerily resemblant of today’s climate initiatives, yet the current state of carbon emissions reduction and industry mobilization continues to fall dangerously short. Why has climate change, a problem that was introduced and reported on concurrently with the ozone issue, not been able to progress through policy with the same rigor?
In the summer of 1988, one of the hottest years on record, media attention toward climate change spiked. In the years following, public environmental support rose, peaking in 1990, with 71% of Americans saying “too little” was being spent on environmental protection, with roughly the same percentage of Democrats and Republicans responding. However, unlike the ozone hole, some scientists at the time voiced doubts about the scale and speed at which climate change would arrive, driving news publishers to issue headlines like “Some scientists studying the greenhouse effect say the sky is falling. Others believe the best advice is to stay cool.”
In the last decade of the 20th century, not only did public support for increased environmental spending begin to drop, but the level of environmental support by political ideology diverged in both public polling and in Congressional votes. However, the trickle of skeptical scientists appearing in the news was hardly the sole culprit behind the public’s growing environmental disengagement.
The Magic Word
Within the media, an incremental yet foundational shift occurred: variety. In the late 1970s, households only saw three network logos on their television screens: ABC, CBS, and NBC. By the late 1980s, the Big Three had lost 18% of their shared national audience to dozens of emerging networks, some of them pioneering 24-hour news cycles. This media expansion created a new generation of viewers that were free to choose channels that matched their preferences, subsequently toppling the reign of nightly news programming. At the end of the 1980s, one TV critic for the Los Angeles Times reflected: “For the first time, viewers became their own programmers, selecting at random anything they wanted from the cornucopia of shows on what now were 30, 40, 50 or more channels. Choice was the magic word.”
In the years since the Big Three began to face emerging network rivals, technology and news sources have proliferated at a rapid and unprecedented pace. Choice remains the law of the media landscape. Not only have networks established their own empires of left and right-leaning news programming, but audience attention has pivoted to internet and entertainment media. Heightened online accessibility means that audiences are now inundated by daily content and frequent updates from reporters, commentators, and personalities of their choosing.
In a certain light, the growth of media variety can be seen as having a bolstering effect on the public’s political knowledge and involvement, as media consumers may seek out sources aligned with their interests. However, the overwhelming outcome has been detrimental shifts in political and social attitudes, as preference-based media have emboldened personal opinion and partisanship more than it has promoted fact-based, objective reporting. And coinciding with this monumental media expansion is the deepening dilemma of climate change.
Feeds, Streams, and Storms
The emergence of social media as a news platform has uniquely impacted how consumers receive and interpret political information. Just as TV audiences may choose networks that better reflect their political ideologies, social media allows users to curate their own systems of news reception, creating political echo chambers rather than forums for healthy debate. Incessant streams of information posted by like-minded users may cause individuals to develop more extreme views, exacerbating already acute divisions. As a result, traditional media outlets using social media platforms have been pushed onto echo-chambered feeds in order to retain public engagement, forcing the news outlets to brush shoulders with opinion-based media groups. Political commentators and personalities also contribute to a growing group of nontraditional media actors who regularly feature their opinions. These actors wield profound influence over online political dialogues, in many cases gaining more popularity than their traditional counterparts.
In a December 2019 tweet shared with over 1.3 million followers, conservative political commentator Dinesh D’Souza called out what he saw was unmistakable left-wing propaganda. Responding to a CNN tweet reporting on environmental activist Greta Thurnberg’s criticism of inadequate climate action, D’Souza wrote, “Nothing has happened because everyone knows this is a racket – including the people perpetrating the racket. Watch their BEHAVIOR and it’s obvious they do not believe the nonsense they spout to get OTHERS to change their behavior and, more importantly, to fork over their money!”
A storm of retweets and responses ensued. Many users further backed D’Souza’s claim with tweets of their own. Others voiced criticism and insults. Examining D’Souza’s tweet in light of how Twitter is used as a platform to inform public political opinion, some key elements are present. The main takeaway is the proximity in which opinion is associated with journalistic reporting. Here, the original CNN tweet served not as a focal point for environmental coverage, but a catalyst for users to express their views and call out what they thought was false. In this respect, facts can hardly stand alone against a current of users who feel their personal opinions are just as newsworthy. We are entering a media era where we not only need to know what happened, but also what prominent commentators or personalities had to say about it.
Another component present in the tweet is the degree of freedom that nontraditional media actors such as D’Souza have in posting their political views to large followings, regardless of whether they are reliable or warranted. As a result, users have no transparent way to judge whether the information they receive is legitimate coverage. Is it the number of shares a post receives? Is it the amount of agreement voiced in replies? Is it the bright blue checkmark, indicating a user’s “verified” approval by the social media platform?
This lack of visible standards not only prompts inflammatory responses from both ends of the political spectrum, but blurs the line of which opinions add value to public discourse. As the dominance of social media grows, the consequences of a news platform that emboldens opinion and reduces transparency are becoming increasingly present.
Today’s media consumers face mounting vulnerabilities as they must grapple with separating fact from rhetoric. A 2018 Pew Research Study found that most Americans have difficulty distinguishing between factual and opinion statements. The ability to make essential factual judgements is also becoming a challenge within America’s younger media consumers. In the latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment, only about 13.5% of American 15-year-olds could fully distinguish between fact and opinion in their reading assessments. In today’s rapidly changing media landscape, a democracy based on universal fact is coming under attack as opinions are becoming more entwined with news reporting.
Successes and Setbacks
Political commentary by nontraditional media actors has grown to be more influential in public discussions, but has also diminished the standards by which consumers judge factual reporting. How has the traditional media fared in delivering objective climate reporting?
Looking at today’s coverage of climate change compared with ozone depletion reporting in the late 1980s, some strategic similarities can be found. First, the visual attribution of upper-atmospheric depletion to a broadening, cancerous “hole” above the Antarctic was able to gain traction within media audiences. Similarly, the exacerbation of the greenhouse effect due to large quantities of fossil fuel emissions was given its own alarming title: global warming. The media’s characterization of global warming has been able to quickly capture public attention, especially in the sequence of sweltering years following the first major congressional climate hearings of the 1980s. However, the title has also lent itself to dangerous simplifications, particularly that unseasonably cold temperature fluctuations disprove that global warming is happening. Think Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) displaying a snowball on the floor of Congress in 2015.
Like the ozone, global warming has also had a number of visual counterparts. Maps blotted in darkening red spots show the regions of Earth experiencing dramatic temperature shifts. Satellite photos of receding ice sheets and flooded coastlines project grim images of global warming. And the increasing frequency of natural disasters have painted a clearer picture of Earth’s changing conditions.
Traditional print media has abundantly covered the ways in which climate change affects everyday human life. Increased power outages, infectious disease, crop declines, and transportation hazards are among many of the ramifications news publications have reported on. The lengths at which the Los Angeles Times has gone to engage public understanding of climate consequences is unmissable in its “Ocean Game,” published on its website in July 2019. The online game depicts a beach with residents and homes, and the player must navigate a set of challenges brought about by rising sea levels.
One pivotal way news organizations have evolved their coverage of climate change in the past years is by relating it to regional concerns. Publications have featured articles zeroing in on costly wildfire damages in California, flooded midwestern crop fields, oyster depletion in Southern cuisine, and school districts from the Rocky Mountains to New England paralyzed by winter storms. One article published by the Texas Tribune reported Hurricane Harvey as a “harbinger of climate change” and warned that global temperature increases “will have an even more crippling impact on life in the United States — and Texas.”
Goli Sheikholeslami, President and CEO of New York Public Radio, explains how National Public Radio has started to build a system that covers climate change both locally and nationwide. “At NPR itself, our second biggest desk after our national desk is our science desk. So we have more reporters covering science and the environment than I think any other news organization in this country. And [in California] we’re starting to create a network of what we call news hubs so that we can pool resources and better do that kind of coverage. It is something that I think regionally, is incredibly important.”
Sheikholeslami emphasizes how over the past 20 years, local media outlets have experienced a rapid decimation and that public radio remains one of the few sources of local news still in good health. In a news landscape that has seen stark bifurcation, she believes local issues are what bring people together. And climate change is no exception.
However, despite the thorough climate coverage achieved by print and radio, television news programming, still the most popular source of American news consumption, has had some major shortcomings.
A 2018 study comparing the televised climate coverage of ABC, CBS, and NBC found a 45% drop in climate change coverage on the nightly news and Sunday morning political shows, from a total of 260 minutes in 2017, down to just 142 minutes in 2018. This drop in airtime has been concurrent with increasing carbon emissions by year, as well as heightened warnings by environmental and political groups. The study also found that in covering the year’s hurricanes, network programs failed to cite the role of climate change in intensifying weather disasters. Similarly, the links between climate change and national security were seldom discussed. Finally, the study found that possible solutions and actions taken toward climate change were mentioned in only a fifth of climate segments.
This failure of broadcast programming to bring relevance and urgency to climate change is dangerous by itself. However, what may be worse is the televised presentation of contrarian views, boosting the prominence of those who reject mainstream science.
“Bad, Bad Science”
In an October 2014 episode of “The Kelly File” on Fox News, Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman falsely asserted that there was no scientific proof of man-made climate change, referring to the overwhelming scientific consensus as “bad, bad science” and incorrectly stating that the health of the Antarctic ice cap is at a record high. This prompted Fox News to later report on climate change as “the alleged climate crisis” and encourage viewers to “let us know what you think about climate change” in their online comments.
In the interview with host Megyn Kelly, Coleman explained how after being denied a debate at a UCLA climate forum, he expressed his views in a memo that received publicity by a conservative think tank. “And voila, it’s been all over the media – not the mainstream media, of course – the internet and here and there. And I ended up getting an invitation from you.”
The route by which Coleman was able to reach a traditional media outlet reveals a concerning lapse in reporting standards. The airtime given to Coleman’s views was not reflective of their scientific merit, but their relevance in conservative pages of the internet. Receiving airtime on a popular television program and having the credentials of a leader in meteorological television makes Coleman appear to be a credible source. However, the majority of environmental claims he makes are either opinions or untruths, receiving little pushback from Kelly.
In trying to dispel the greenhouse phenomenon, he does not reference any specific data and only refers to “a petition of 9,000 PhDs and 31 scientists” who believe carbon dioxide is not a significant greenhouse gas. To characterize the segment as misleading would be an understatement. Similar to how social media allows nontraditional media actors to freely share unvetted information, this instance of environmental network coverage makes it difficult for viewers to assess the factual value of Coleman’s statements.
The attention toward climate skepticism by traditional media has not stopped there. Other broadcast programs, wishing to appear objective in the face of escalating accusations of partisanship, have made moves toward reporting the “two sides” of climate change, although it is an issue that has received nearly universal scientific consensus. In a November 2018 episode of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” guest Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute inaccurately claimed that global temperatures have fallen, again receiving minimal pushback from the show’s host.
In discussions online and within the traditional media, depictions of climate change as a disputed phenomenon have contributed to a general American bewilderment surrounding the existence of climate change and the factual evidence that supports it. A 2019 study conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication estimated that 17% of Americans correctly understand that almost all climate scientists think global warming is happening, with 70% of Americans largely underestimating the number of scientists and 21% of Americans having no idea.
The heightened presence of skepticism toward established scientific findings presents a challenge today that did not exist during the time of ozone action. While there are growing numbers in the majority of Americans who believe in climate science rather than deny it, there still exists a grave inability to recognize climate change as a universal reality. The failure of the media to accurately and objectively present this reality has weakened the public’s recognition of climate change at a time when it is most dire.
The Habit of Tuning In
The staggering changes within the media landscape have transformed the way Americans interact with information. Although media coverage of environmental issues has retained many of the same elements from the time of ozone action, it has also diverged in critical ways. The growing selection of news outlets and platforms has granted Americans substantial choosing power, but at the same time has heightened media partisanship. Recent polling shows us that media distrust is rising, and that news sources shared by both conservatives and liberals are becoming fewer. And the emergence of social media as a platform for both opinion and news has deteriorated factual standards and built up political echo chambers.
The stream of skepticism and swarm of opinion, aggrandized by a preference-driven media landscape, are both the source and symptoms of America’s intensifying polarization. In a media explosion that has given Americans choice in the news sources they consume, there has subsequently been an emergence of choice in the facts Americans believe. While the degree of this has hardly yet reached the threshold of a dystopian reality, the political atmosphere through which we must address today’s most pressing environmental issues is far from idyllic.
As a result, when examining the success of ozone legislation in the late 1980s, it was not only the type of news coverage that impacted public support, but the media climate it was received in. Ozone action happened at a time when Americans still shared most of the same news sources and had a similar sense of the facts that drove their world. However, the pre-internet media expansion of the 1980s also foreshadowed what a more diverse news landscape would entail. With the weakened position of nightly network news, one staff writer for the Los Angeles Times predicted the disappearance of what he saw as the shared American “habit of tuning in.”
Today’s decentralized media landscape presents us with the daunting task of restoring a common, objective news experience. With the environmental challenges we face today and in the future, it is imperative that Americans start to see the universal impact of climate change. While the ideological split in our news media and political discourse will likely remain present, there are still actions we can take to alleviate some of its worst effects, especially regarding climate. Monitoring social media to make clearer the distinctions between opinion and fact, presenting climate issues as both national and regional concerns, and reestablishing climate change as an objective issue – not simply a “two-sided” one – are some of the adjustments we can make to ensure public discourse is conducive to necessary climate action. In correcting the shortcomings of our current news practices, we can better shape how we inform the American public as we continue to grapple with one of the most critical crises of our time.
Christina Luke is a junior in the School of Foreign Service majoring in International Politics and minoring in French.