Media Lens
(...) Increasingly, now, we do have citizens among us: scientists â particularly, climate scientists â who are awakening from their âmainstreamâ slumber to the reality that they are citizens of a decaying society on a dying planet. (...)
To be fair, even veteran activists are asking themselves: âIn what kind of world have we actually been living all along?â For when it comes to anything other than maximising profit for corporations and pacifying the public, there appears to be no-one piloting the ship of state. (...)
The confusion and outrage are understandable. But why is climate denial still so prevalent? Why are so many people behaving as if there is no crisis? (...)
State-corporate interests generate and galvanise public fear into action with great efficiency when they want to. We need only think of World Wars I and II when millions of people were mobilised to kill and be killed to defend âdemocracyâ, the âFatherlandâ, the âMotherlandâ. After 1945, public fear and outrage were similarly brought to fever pitch by âred scaresâ insisting that âThe Russians are coming!â As Zinn noted, the alarm was also rung to devastating effect in 1990 at the time of Iraqâs invasion of Kuwait. (...)
The same was true at the time of Natoâs assault on Serbia in 1999, also in 2003 when Iraq was invaded and conquered, in 2011 when the Libyan government was overthrown, and when the same attempt was made in Syria. (...)
This is why there is no sense of climate crisis, of emergency. It has nothing to do with human indifference; it has to do with people with authority and power â interests fanatically committed to expanding profits â NOT producing banner, front-page headlines of this kind:
âCLIMATE COLLAPSE: THE WORLD LOOKS THE OTHER WAY. WILL YOU? OR WILL YOU BECOME VERY, VERY ANGRY?â
âFOSSIL FUEL INTERESTS ARE KILLING US FOR SHORT-TERM PROFIT: THE WORLD LOOKS THE OTHER WAY. WILL YOU? OR WILL YOU BECOME VERY, VERY ANGRY?â
Far from alarming us, front page headlines are still literally celebrating indications of looming climate collapse. On January 2, the Sunday Telegraph front page featured a smiling, costumed performer at Londonâs New Yearâs Day parade, under the headline:
âWarmest New Yearâs Day on recordâ
(...) Even when the impacts of climate change are not being celebrated, they are still being questioned. A BBC article asked:
âAre soaring temperatures linked to climate change?â
How, in 2022, with everything we know, can this even be a question? By contrast, during âred scaresâ and âthe war on terrorâ, often bogus âthreatsâ were shrieked out as undisputed and utterly terrifying. Any expressions of doubt were reviled as genocide-denying treachery.
This surreal combination of celebration and denial is being produced in the context of devastating weather extremes that are only going to get much, much worse. (...)
More than 20 US states were experiencing dangerously hot temperatures impacting nearly 100 million Americans as grim footage was shared of thousands of cattle killed by dangerous temperatures, raising the much-feared spectre of global food shortages as temperatures continue to rise. (...)
It is reported that the current drought in Italy threatens more than 30% of national agricultural production. In Sydney, 50,000 people have been urged to evacuate their homes as floods hit Australiaâs largest city for the third time this year. (...)
Climate scientists are warning that âevery heatwave occurring today is more intense due to climate change.â Heatwaves linked to climate change reportedly killed 157,000 people worldwide between 2000 and 2020, with four-fifths of those deaths during the 2003 European heatwave and 2010 Russia heatwave. (...)
AntĂłnio Guterres, the UN secretary general, has been scathing in his denunciations of the fossil fuel industry and their political backers. Addressing a climate conference organised by the White House, he warned:
âWe seem trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat. For decades, the fossil fuel industry has invested heavily in pseudoscience and public relations â with a false narrative to minimise their responsibility for climate change and undermine ambitious climate policies.â
He continued:
âThey exploited precisely the same scandalous tactics as big tobacco decades before. Like tobacco interests, fossil fuel interests and their financial accomplices must not escape responsibility.â (...)
Scientists like Kalmus are now pleading with the corporate media to drop the denialism and phony âbalanceâ, and hit the alarm button with full force:
âThe single biggest media failure of all time is how the media still isnât treating global heating as an emergency.â
He added:
âClimate journalists, the climate emergency just isnât a normal thing to report. There need to be new rules/norms/practices when our entire planet is at stake. Itâs a singular story.â
(...) How to escape state-corporate control of the means of mass communication?
It is a problem no-one has yet managed to solve. But a powerful step in the right direction must be for scientists to radicalise and mobilise â to look deeply and understand the true nature of corporate politics and corporate media â and to act together to demand public insurrection, rebellion and revolutionary change.
Complete article
> See also: Itâs democracy v plutocracy â this is the endgame for our planet (The Guardian)
> See also: âThere Is No Way To Fool Physicsâ: Climate Breakdown And State-Corporate Madness (Media Lens)
![Screen shot of tv weather forecast](https://www.medialens.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Climate-forecast.png)
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