User:Coffee4cup/Media coverage of climate change

United Kingdom Media Coverage of Climate Change
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Historic Coverage By Government Officials
In the UK, statements by government officials have been influential in the public perception on climate change. In 1988, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave one of the first speeches to draw public attention to climate change. This speech highlighted the assumption that industrialization had no impact on the global climate and contrasted it with the stark reality of an increasingly volatile climate. In another speech, Margaret Thatcher expressed that “we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself”. Thatcher’s speeches on climate change contributed to a record-breaking number of votes for the Green Party in the 1989 European Parliament Election. These speeches sparked an increase in broader media coverage of climate change.

In the early 2000s, David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK, stated that the most difficult issue we are facing today is climate change and that its effects are worse than terrorism. David King established that reducing carbon emissions wouldn't just benefit the environment but also the collective wellbeing of UK citizens. King's personal focus was precisely on climate change and he produced innovative thinking tactics and negotiations for the eyes of the media.

In 1988 in United States, NASA scientist James Hansen stated that climate change was anthropogenic. This had a similar result to Thatcher's speeches, drawing public attention to the climate crisis and spurring increased media coverage of the issue. The US and UK are comparable in their coverage of climate change for this reason. Despite evidence for anthropogenic climate change arising as early as the late 19th century, both countries lacked significant media coverage on climate change prior to 1988. However, the trajectory of media coverage in these countries vary significantly after this 1988 increase.

For a short period in 1988, the United States had slightly more coverage, but the two countries were quite similar. However, in the following years, the UK consistently produced more articles, and in 2003, it spiked, producing a significantly larger amount of articles. 2003 was a year where the UK and much of Europe experienced the hottest summer to date. Temperatures reached up to 38.5℃, which is 101.3℉, resulting in 2,000 deaths in the UK, and more across Europe. This significant event drew the attention of newspapers, therefore increasing the amount of articles produced. For example, in the year following the heatwave, The Guardian released an article in March, 2004, warning about even more severe summers that would come. This article included a quote from Dr. Luterbacher, who stated, “We don't know if it will get warmer every year, but the trend is certainly in that direction.” The article also claimed that this extreme event was not due to natural causes, suggesting that human activity was responsible. This fear of worse summers on the way and growing understanding of the human causes continued to increase articles following 2003.

An examination into the community of the UK and their perspectives of the climate change movement is important for the progression of change. In 2001, the National Survey of Public Attitudes to Quality of Life, created a poll to create an understanding of what the public viewed as the most important concerns, in the moment, relating to the local to global environment. The outcome was that the public listed global warming as their 8th on their list of current concerns. The office for National Statistics then constructed an additional poll asking the same question but reflecting 20 years ahead. In which the community stated that in 20 years time, the concern of the congestion fumes and noises relating from traffic was more concerning than the significant impacts of climate change.

Along with heatwaves, other problems that arise from climate change tend to generate more media coverage. Specifically, the issue of flooding as a result from the changing climate draws attention, and therefore, causes media to report on the issue. In a six year span, between 2001 and 2007, the UK had over a hundred articles per newspaper covering the topic of flooding, showing a clear concern with extreme weather events. However, although the UK tends to frame climate change as being the fault of humans more than the US, the newspapers often ignore the role that climate change plays in these extreme events. In the hundreds of articles about flooding in the UK between 2001 and 2007, climate change was only mentioned 55 times in any of them. The Guardian had the most mentions of climate change and drawing connections between climate change and issues such as flooding. However, the Guardian still only mentioned climate change 17 times out of 197 stories about climate change. Therefore, extreme events and tangible effects can be observed such as floods or heatwaves do cause more attention on the issue with an increased amount of media, however, the media does not always draw the connections between the issues and climate change.

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There is a diverse range of types of articles the media companies in the United Kingdom are presenting to the public. Specifically looking at The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph, The Times and Sunday Times. In one article, newspapers are categorized into running from anthropogenic global warming only contributes to climate change to anthropogenic global warming negligently contributes to climate change. In this study, it is clear that on average, these news sources have increased in scientific credibility.

In 2006 Futerra published research to determine if feedback from the UK community on the topic of global warming was either positive or negative. The results were that only 25 percent of the climate change newspapers were positive. A huge media company that participated in the positive feedback was the Financial Times in which it contained the most coverage relating to the truth of climate change, even mentioning that it opens up business opportunities. That specific comment from the Financial Times created a movement that made businesses act faster than the government in brainstorming solutions for the related problems. The commuters of London, reaching to the amount of a million participants, on the date of October 25, 2007, they were provided a free metro newspaper which contained an important article with the headline “We’re in the biggest race of our lives.” which encompassed the details of the fourth report of the United Nations Environmental Programme’s Global Environment Outlook (GEO). The contents of the GEO presented how the actions placed on climate change were critically insufficient. A surplus of UK citizens were not ready for a change with the present facts of scientific uncertainty.

The Sunday Telegraph specifically has a history of producing anti-climate change articles and news. The media publication did a major publication of Christopher Monckton, who is well known for his denial of climate change. They wrote this in one of their articles:

“When this global warming madness passes, future generations will remove this derelict solar and wind infrastructure and return to the only reliable and economical electricity options—coal, gas, hydro and nuclear.” (The Sunday Telegraph, London, 2010, 'Officials & climate').

George Monbiot, a weekly column writer for The Guardian, says specifically in Birtian he sees, there is a prevalent discourse of unity and collaboration when it comes to environmental concerns in media outlets such as: The Guardian, The Times, the Sun and the Independent. He also claims to have read “utter nonsense” in The Daily Mail or The Sunday Telegraph.

A specific case of the community's reaction to climate change can be seen in the YouthStrike4Climate movement, specifically UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC) and the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN). According to Bart Cammaerts, there has been an overall positive media representation of the climate movement from United Kingdom media outlets. It is significant that 60% of the Daily Mail’s articles written about the climate movement were in a negative tone. While the BBC had over 70% written in a positive tone. There are a range of media outlets covering climate change, and they all have different opinions on the movement.

While there are diverse perspectives represented in print media, right-wing newspapers reach far more readers. For example, the right-leaning Daily Mail and The Sun each circulated more than 1 million copies in 2019, while the left-wing equivalents, Daily Mirror and The Guardian only circulated 600,000 copies. Over time, these right-wing newspapers have published less editorials opposing climate action. In 2011, the proportion of these editorials was 5:1 against climate change. In 2021, this ratio had dropped to 1:9. Additionally, articles critical of climate action have shifted away from outright denial of climate change. Instead, these editorials highlight the costs associated with climate action, as well as blame other countries for climate change.

A noteworthy moment in the movement for climate change in the United Kingdom is Greta Thunberg. Starting in September 2019, she emerged as a global activist celebrity and media outlets began covering her more and more. From September 17th, 2019, to October 3rd, 2019, 21% of all media coverage on specific people were about Greta Thunberg. Young climate activist’s prevalence in the media continued to increase and thus so did the amount of media on the subject.

With more attention Greta Thunberg also led to an increased number of misogyny on women in climate change. According to Bart Cammaerts, “These disparaging discourses of belittlement also serve to deny children the right to have a voice on environmentalism and politics.” In the United Kingdom, the youth activism movement played a key role in the increased production of media coverage of climate change.