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Simon Hoggart’s ‘dogmatic and irrational’ mistake

Yesterday in the Guardian Simon Hoggart referred to the environmental movement as a ‘religion - dogmatic and irrational’ in a small aside about wind power as the last entry in his week’s sketch. The full quote:

We are to have across our still beautiful countryside thousands more ghastly, noisy, hideous wind turbines, which produce very little energy at enormous cost. Proof that the environmental movement has become a religion - dogmatic and irrational - in that it has now persuaded government that to save the environment, we must first destroy it. [my emphasis]

Not the kind of environmental journalism you expect from the Guardian, which has delivered a consistent and well-researched line of sober alarm on climate change. More »

Why local and digital is better for the environment

A group of bloggers have organised a Carnival of Journalism, each month addressing different key issues in the profession. This month it’s hosted by Andy Dickinson, who set the question: Is (digital) journalism better the more local it is and what does that do to growth?

I’m not one of the official cavorters, but it got me thinking anyway about local (digital) media and environmental journalism. For me, the crossover of local/digital journalism and environmental sustainability could be a fantastic growth opportunity for regional media, as well as local citizen journalism groups and networks, with the result being increased environmental awareness and activity. More »

More on ads: the Exxon ‘flip-flop’

I’m writing this blog as it’s announced that Exxon’s damages for the Valdez oil spill, in 1989, have finally been agreed. Nineteen years after.  The oil company are also infamous for allegedly providing US$23m to undermine the science of climate change, and offering scientists and economists $10,000 each to undermine the findings of the latest IPCC report. Now Exxon have just released these ‘game-changing’ climate ads across Europe. A flip-flop, or just good old greenwash?

Mitchell Anderson over at DeSmogBlog has already provided a great summary of Exxon’s activities, so I won’t repeat it here. It’s important and fair to note that this is not the only perspective on the issue. Some bloggers are picking up on the story/allegation that the scientific community are cashing in on global warming, and that finance is the biggest draw for shouting loudest on climate change as a threat. I totally disagree with that, but it’s out there. (Oh, and here’s the link to how much they’re paying for the Exxon Valdez spill).

So from me, rather, a few comments on the discourse of these adverts from Exxon, ad by ad (click on the ad for larger versions): More »

Lexus advertises its climate credo

Lots of ink on car advertising this morning, as The Guardian report Fiat are criticized by the Advertising Standards Authority for “boasting” about claims on low CO2 emissions. FIat were found to have breached “the CAP code on grounds of truthfulness, prices, comparisons, motoring and qualification of environmental claims.” That’s a lot of breaching.

Now then, I wonder which of these categories could be used against this ad from Lexus? Probably none, unfortunately. I spotted this ad as I was on my way to work the other day:

Ad agencies and their clients have responded to climate change in a number of ways. Many have been aggressive and counter to the general trend that there is more we can contribute in reducing our individual levels of consumption (e.g. the carbon footprint idea). Others have been more responsible. More »

Twenty years on: covering climate change

I wonder what the long-term impact will be on my personality of writing about climate change.

I am writing a chapter for a book provisionally entitled ‘Media and Climate Change’, an academic text, and my focus is on the reporting of the policy texts: how the Kyoto Protocol, IPCC reports, UK Climate Bill, etc, have been received and dealt with in the press, and what impact this has had on effective action.

It can be upsetting and depressing work. It would be fair to say I’m struggling this week. One example why: read this intro to a news story I was anaylsing:

SCIENTISTS, politicians and journalists are part of a conspiracy to predict catastrophe through global warming, a Channel 4 programme suggested last night. The programme claimed that disparate groups were making this claim for their own reasons and presented data allegedly demolishing the greenhouse theory. Scientists from the Meteorological Office meet today to decide whether to complain to the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

Sounds familiar? The Great Global Warming Swindle from last year, right? No. This was The Greenhouse Conspiracy, broadcast by Channel 4, which I found while researching media coverage of the first IPCC report in 1990. Watch it on Youtube. More »

Wordle images of today’s top stories

Wordle is a very cool tool. Put in any bunch of words and it creates a text cloud based on most commonly recurring words.

Here is today’s lead story (and all peripheral links and stories on the homepage) on DailyMail.co.uk: More »

Is incoherency the Republican ticket?

Lots of questions this week on why John McCain is ditching his green credentials and environmental strategy to deliver a mix of messages to the American public.

Earlier in the week Grist and Politico both commented on the launch of McCain’s new environmental TV ad coming on the same day as his call for the lifting of restrictions on offshore drilling (this to an audience of Big Oil in Houston). Commenting on this, Lester Feder at the Huffington Post suggests that:

McCain’s wholesale abandonment of a month-long environmental PR strategy is more than a knee-jerk response to a new peak in oil prices. It is a sign that the McCain campaign’s efforts to define the 2008 election narrative are in disarray.

And Feder quotes a number of political commentators who see this reversal as McCain “grasping at straws” to re-focus his campaign on the economy, in line with American voters’ views.

But I wonder if, at some deeper lever, McCain and his campaign are ingrained into an incoherency (it’s in the title of Feder’s article) that won Bush the last (two?) elections. Is incoherency a card the Republicans have become too used to playing in sowing doubt in the minds of the voting public? More »

It’s Friday: a winner takes all climate question

Ok, hold on to your hat. As La Marguerite said earlier this week, and as Grist has been proving for eons, there’s no reason why we can’t laugh. So, it’s Friday. And here’s one winner-takes-all (the kudos) climate change question for you.

Which of these graphs was actually used in a serious article to help explain climate change impacts? More »

Posted in climate change

Tags: climate change, deniers, humour

UK government rules on car advertising

Good news, sung quietly. Following up on a story from last week, where car manufacturers and advertising executives went to Brussels to protest against plans to make emissions information mandatory on all car ads, the news is: they failed.

At least in the UK. What this means is that this:

Changes to this:

The word du jour, as both Sian Berry (Green Party, Alliance against 4×4s) and Friends of the Earth, who campaigned on the issue, note, is “emblazoned”. This is the ruling, sent by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI):

“The Regulations define ‘promotional literature’ as ‘all printed matter used in the marketing, advertising and promotion of a new passenger car…’. We are of the view that this definition does include material which is largely graphical, with limited textual content (perhaps containing only the model name and an advertising slogan). We therefore consider that street advertisements are subject to the requirements of the regulations.”

Good work. Shows what can be done with application and an inside to the law.

PS.
I spotted an advert for Volvo on the St Peter’s bridge earlier (Sunderland, over the Wear) with a strapline “put your carbon foot down”, off to take a picture. Photos here courtesy of the campaign site, AdvertiseCO2.co.uk

‘Churnalism’ strikes with earthquakes

News sites and the Associated Press in America are being criticized by a leading climate blog for failing to check the veracity of a report that was pushed in a press release last week, claiming that earthquakes are linked to global warming.

Did you miss it? This story was published on:

• Yahoo Biz
• Investigate Express.co.uk
• MSNBC
• Free Republic (grass roots conservatism)
• Ad Hoc News (says it all…)

Erm. That’s about it. Thanks to RyanM on the Climate Audit site, Sans Pretence, the comments on Pat Dollard, and Wesley Smith for picking up on the news items. As Wesley says, “Does anybody do any fact checking anymore? Or are the words “scientific study” on a press release all that it takes to make the news?” (filed under: Stupidity in Media). The story was picked up by a number of other climate and political blogs, many of which are providing normally excellent citizen journalism, and, as such, (e.g. Deprogram your mind) quickly removed.

So where’d they get the story? More »