Climate of coverage: Lord Turner’s report

The beginning of this week saw the press respond (or not) to Lord Adair Turner’s new report on reducing our UK carbon emissions as part of his role as chair of the government’s Committee on Climate Change. Taking a snapshot (or synchronic, to use the technical term) analysis of the coverage of the report [...]

Newcastle’s Chronicle, Daily Mail are green winners

The Press Gazette have announced the winners of their inaugural Environmental Journalism awards, and illustrated in one move what a strange and contradictory thing such events can be. First of all, what the judges got right before what they got totally wrong.
Most importantly, the special commendation for Newcastle’s Evening Chronicle and it’s Go Green [...]

Pachauri’s blog and President Obama

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has launched his own blog.
It’s a curious thing for someone already so well known, well positioned, to do (hence the exclamation marks from Wattsupwiththat). It is also not that sophisticated as a portfolio site.
Perhaps the process of leading the IPCC through tortuous negotiations [...]

Climate change likened to ‘Y2k scam’

One of the most arresting case studies in Nick Davies’ book Flat Earth News, about the ‘churnalism’ of poor reporting/stories that is sweeping through the journalism industry as the result of its commercialisation, is about Y2K - the millennium bug.
Davies successfully shows how a ‘non-story’ fed itself, both politically and in the press, until [...]

‘Smart children likely to vote green’

On this fine morning for democracy, something to warm the hearts of the Green Party, and its leaders and principal speakers, Caroline Lucas and Derek Wall. This story in The Times from Monday:
Cleverer children are more likely to vote for the Green Party or the Liberal Democrats in a general election than other parties when [...]

Climate change bill passed (in the night)

Well I think I spoke too soon. There was very little coverage of the Climate Change Bill passing its commons stages. Perhaps this was due to the Brand-effect, or that most journalists are still deployed onto credit crunching topics. Prince Charles did make it into the papers yesterday talking about the ‘climate crunch’.
But so far [...]

Climate Change UK: vote today in parliament, 4pm

Elliot Morley was on Radio 4 this morning discussing his amendment to the climate change bill, going through parliament. His amendment willl, if accepted, include aviation and shipping in the bill, as well as the 80% target by 2050 which was recommended in Lord Turner’s report.
There will no doubt be a great deal of coverage [...]

Independent’s top 100 environmentalists

The Independent on Sunday has published a list of the top 100 environmentalists, as decided upon by its panel of four judges. And the winner?
Britain’s most successful transport campaigner has come top of the first comprehensive list of the country’s most effective greens, compiled by The Independent on Sunday.
The little-known John Stewart, who leads the [...]

Mapping the growth of environment online via the Guardian’s activist taxonomy

The Guardian has ramped up its environmental coverage recently, including the establishment of a Guardian Environment Network that has started publishing articles from blog networks such as RealClimate.org, giving them prominence on the Guardian main site.
One piece by Bibi van der Zee is about the Climate Rush, taking place today, which, as Bibi notes, “is [...]

Lomborg on half-baked climate ideas

On the Guardian this morning, Bjorn Lomborg argues that politicians using the line that the cost of action on climate change “is low compared to the high price of inaction” are, in fact using an “almost fraudulent” argument. Lomborg believes politicians are getting away with this because “we assume that the action will cancel all [...]