Five Grave Communications Failures of the US Media On Climate Change

Abstract

The US media has utterly failed to communicate to the American people about five essential aspects of climate change that they need to understand to know why climate change is a civilization challenging problem that requires dramatic, aggressive, and urgent policy action to avoid harsh impacts to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Ethics and Climate.org has recently developed a video on these failures entitled: Five Grave Communication Failures of US Media On Climate Change We now provide a more detailed written description of these failures in this and subsequent posts. In this post we look at the first of these communications failures, namely the failure to communicate to US citizens the strength and nature of the current scientific consensus position on climate change. Subsequent posts will examine the following additional communication failures of the US media: The magnitude of greenhouse gas emissions reductions that are necessary to prevent dangerous climate change. The consistent barrier that the United States has been in finding a global solution on climate change for over 20 years. The fact that climate change must be understood as a civilization challenging ethical problem, an understanding that is of profound significance for climate change policy formation. The nature of the climate change disinformation campaign in the United States.