SubscribeArticle talks about the changes that are looking to be made to the Earth Summit in 2012, and speculation as to whether participating countries will be able to finally get it together and pass some helpful legislation to combat climate change.
Examining the balance of Climate Change coverage in Alternative Media
An issue of concern to many people who are worried about global warming is the equal balance mainstream media tends to give to both sides of the issue. After all, the polar ice caps are melting, and we're all screwed, right? There shouldn't be any skeptics pushing propaganda funded by the oil industry on TV. Sarcasm, of course, but a big topic of conversation in class this week was the balanced coverage shown in the mainstream media regarding climate change. This usually isn't a problem, but the thing is that when equal sides are presented in a news story on the topic, it isn't what it looks like. As the Boykoff and Boykoff article stated, "Superficial balance, telling both sides of the story, can actually lead to informational bias." Basically, the article argues that the media is giving too much space to climate change skeptics who have hidden agendas and biased information.
One would think that the alternative media, with it's often sarcastic leftist nature, would slam skeptics and only be concerned with reporting the facts on global warming. This isn't the case, though. Last year, the Huffington Post actually ran an open letter from an active conservative global warming skeptic named Harold Ambler, titled "Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted."
Ambler aggressively attacks Al Gore and the views presented in the film "An Inconvenient Truth," saying climate change "is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of mankind." He then goes on a typical right-wing rampage attempting to invoke some sense of forced rage out of the reader. Ambler's letter doesn't say anything new, and it is rather pretentious and arrogant, but the point here is that conservative viewpoints should be at least heard in alternative media as well. Alternative media should also try to achieve a sense of balance. The scientists and politicians who fight global warming are wrong, in my opinion. But their voice still counts, and therefore should be heard.
Alternative media seems to be striking the right balance between stories that highlight progressive scientific viewpoints, and skepticism. Let's face it, people who are denying climate change are a minority, albeit a very vocal one. The blogs seem to post a good ratio of stories that speak to the correct proportion of both sides. Here's another story from an alternative media source showing another side to the climate change story, a more humorous and liberal one. The title is "Let's call setting a price on carbon "puppies" and call clean energy standards "kittens" just so pro pollution ideologues have to attack cute animals."
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/29/lets-call-pricing-carbon-puppies-and-clean-energy-standards-kittens-just-so-pro-pollution-idealogues-have-to-attack-cute-animals/
There are many stories in alternative media that cater to both sides of this debate. Keep your eyes on your favorite blogs and remember to keep your eyes open. A lot of good info is coming from both sides, let's be sure to realize that both side can make favorable points.
Trevor Evans
Twitter- a good source of alternative media?
Twitter has definitely become a new media platform for our generation, and while I usually frown upon it, it's nice to see that it is also being used as a source of alternative media for environmental communication, rather than just the daily happenings of celebrities. I wonder, however, if this is a useful tool for recruiting more environmental activists and fostering awareness. Because each "tweet" is just a sentence or so long, they are able to update quite regularly with little snippets of news, so in theory, people would be exposed to a wide variety of happenings around the world. This might be beneficial because most people say they don't have time to sit down and read full articles on everything that is going on, and this way they could have at least some level of awareness and perhaps further research the topics that peak their interest. At the same time, people may just skim over these "tweets" and feel good about themselves at the end of the day because they feel like they spent some time on green education.
As we have discussed in class, one of the key methods of change is education. People need to be educated in order to truly care, and in order to know out of all the products and lifestyles that are constantly being marketed to us what is actually helpful and how it helps. If people are just reading one sentence blurbs about green news, are they actually being impacted? Is this sort of brief education actually effective or merely just efficient?
Example of an environmental twitter feed:
Bacardi, the new drink of choice for environmentalists
More and more, big businesses are racing to be the first of their kind to be "green." Bacardi is an example of this, as they have been upping their efforts to be the most sustainable spirits company in the world. Companies are capitalizing on the general public's desire for environmental change ( or unfortunately in many cases, just to seem like they are supporting environmental change ), which may seem like a bad thing, but at the same time, they are creating a change whether it's in the name of their own selfishness or in the name of the environment. What do you think of efforts like this?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
