"Covering Climate Now"

Particularly like the wind turbines. Donald Trump hates them--he recently claimed they cause cancer.

This is extremely important. Principally important to get stuff right, given the loud, aggressive Denialism to be overcome. "Investigative Journalism" in the climate science space had better be up to forensic speed.

Guardian joins major global news collaboration Covering Climate Now
The Guardian joins the Nation and Columbia Journalism Review in launching a new partnership among more than 250 news organizations to improve coverage of the climate crisis

Hundreds of newsrooms around the world are banding together this week to commit their pages and air time to what may be the most consequential story of our time: the climate emergency...

The network represents every corner of the media including TV networks (CBS News, Al Jazeera), newspapers (El País, the Toronto Star), digital players (BuzzFeed, HuffPost, Vox), wire services (Getty Images, Bloomberg), magazines (Nature, Scientific American), and dozens of podcasts, local publishers, radio and TV stations.

At the launch of the Covering Climate Now partnership in May, co-founders Mark Hertsgaard of the Nation and Kyle Pope, editor in chief of Columbia Journalism Review, wrote an impassioned oped calling for change in how the media covers the climate crisis.

“At a time when civilization is accelerating toward disaster, climate silence continues to reign across the bulk of the US news media,” Hertsgaard and Pope wrote. “Especially on television, where most Americans still get their news, the brutal demands of ratings and money work against adequate coverage of the biggest story of our time.”

See just one of my prior posts, "Climate change: What we know."

Also, "Baltimore Code Red." And, "More on climate change and health impacts," to cite just a couple more for now.

Everyone should also read this book:

 

Truthiness. Fake news. Alternative Facts. Since these Princeton Tanner Lectures were delivered in late 2016, the urgency of sorting truth from falsehood—information from disinformation—has exploded into public consciousness. Climate change is a case in point. In the United States in the past two years, devastating hurricanes, floods, and wildfires have demonstrated to ordinary people that the planetary climate is changing and the costs are mounting. Denial is no longer just pig-headed, it is cruel. The American people now understand—as people around the globe have already for some time—that anthropogenic climate change is real and threatening. But how do we convince those who are still in denial, among them the president of the United States, who has withdrawn the United States from the international climate agreement and declared climate change to be a “hoax”? [pg 245]

Even as we disagree about many political issues, our core values overlap to a great degree. To the extent that we can make those areas of agreement clear—and explain how they relate to scientific work—we might be able to overcome the feelings of skepticism and distrust that often prevail, particularly distrust that is rooted in the perception of a clash of values.

So let me be clear about my values.

I wish to prevent avoidable human suffering and to protect the beauty and diversity of life on Earth. I wish to preserve the joy of winter sports, the majesty of coral reefs, and the wonder of giant sequoia trees. I love thunderstorms, but I do not want them to become more dangerous. I do not want flooding and hailstorms and hurricanes to destroy communities and kill innocent people. I do want to make sure that all of our children and grandchildren and generations to come, both in the United States and around the globe, have the same opportunity to live well and prosper that I have had. I don’t want us all to become poorer, as we spend increasing sums of money repairing the damage of climate change, damage that could have been prevented at far lower cost. I don’t believe it is fair for the profits of a few corporations to become the losses of us all. I believe that government is necessary, but I have no desire to expand it unnecessarily...

If we fail to act on our scientific knowledge and it turns out to be right, people will suffer and the world will be diminished.

The evidence for this is overwhelming. On the other hand, if we act on the available scientific conclusions and they turn out to be wrong, well, then, as the cartoonist says, we will have created a better world for nothing. [pp 157-159]

Global warming, "the ultimate mental health issue?"

UPDATE

Story link.

And, The Real News Network has signed on.

Public awareness of the climate crisis has turned a corner. More people than ever understand not only that it’s real and human-caused, but also that it’s the world’s greatest existential threat. Climate action has become a key election issue, and movements are raising expectations of what that action could be.

In recent months, there’s been an uptick in climate coverage (thanks in large part, of course, to organizers). But we need so much more—and deeper, broader, and better—reporting on the climate crisis.

We need media that explains how carbon emissions create more hurricanes and heat waves and forest fires. We need media that explores how we can adapt. We need to hear from more kinds of people and about more kinds of solutions. We need to hear more about climate justice, because poor people, especially people of color and especially in the Global South, are often hit hardest. We need hyperlocal stories and global ones. And we need to hear more about the industries and policymakers who are responsible for the mess we’re in.

That’s why we’re proud to be a part of Covering Climate Now along with over 220 other news outlets...

Excellent. Kudos.

CBS onboard:

Throwing a billion news consumers behind coverage of the climate crisis

A CBS News poll showing that most Americans want to tackle the climate crisis right away. A PBS interview with Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist from Sweden who recently arrived in the US on an emissions-free yacht. A story in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, in West Virginia, mapping the growing conversation about climate change in the coal-rich state. A whole issue of Lapham’s Quarterly. A video by The Intercept in which Naomi Klein, the writer and activist, explains how the plastic straws hawked by the Trump campaign help explain wrongheaded conservative—and liberal—responses to the climate crisis. (“What we are witnessing is a temper tantrum against the mere suggestion that there are limits to what we can consume,” Klein says.) A Variety interview with Javier Bardem.

These are among the stories published as part of Covering Climate Now, a major new initiative from CJR and The Nation, in partnership with The Guardian, that aims to increase the visibility of the climate crisis in our media. Covering Climate Now’s debut project—eight days of dedicated climate coverage by partner news organizations—launched yesterday and will end a week from today, to coincide with the Climate Action Summit at the United Nations in New York. The initiative isn’t limited to the US: in total, more than 250 outlets from around the world signed on, throwing a combined audience of more than 1 billion people behind the project. Our partners include Bloomberg; Agence France-Presse; the Toronto Star; La Repubblica, in Italy; Asahi Shimbun, in Japan; El País, in Spain; News18, in India; Daily Maverick, in South Africa, and the Daily Mirror, in the UK. (You can find a full list here.)...

I hope this initiative will have Legs.

UPDATE

GlobalClimateStrike.net

HEALTHCARE SPACE UPDATE

Just finished this book. Frank. Perceptive. Inspiring.

Will review it soon.
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More to come... #CoveringClimateNow#ClimateEmergency #globalwarming