If you found yourself bundling up in scarves, hats, and long underwear less than usual last year, you weren't alone: 2012 was the warmest year on record in the contiguous United States, according to scientists with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA: 2012 was warmest U.S. year ever
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If the weather was the hottest ever in the U.S. in 2012, how come climate change got the cold shoulder through most of the 2012 presidential campaign, or on Capitol Hill?
There was this brief exchage about the weather between the candidates at their party's conventions:
Romney:
"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet," Mr. Romney told GOP delegates in Tampa, a smile on his face. "My promise [long pause – audience laughter] is to help you and your family."
Obama:
"Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax," the president shouted to delegates in Charlotte, N.C. "More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They're a threat to our children's future. And in this election, you can do something about it."
But other than that, talk of climate change has been quiet like a setting sun. Does it seem too quiet? Is there a reason......
John Cook, a Climate Communication Fellow at University of Queensland says the reason for supression of climate communication is the communications giant, Fox News:
"Climate change has been significantly absent from the US presidential election campaign. President Obama, who made climate change a key plank of his 2008 campaign, has not been anywhere near as vocal in this race.
Republican nominee Mitt Romney, recognising the active disbelief in climate science among his party base, only raises the issue to sneer at it as the obsession of a deluded middle class.
But how did we arrive at this point? Why is the defining issue of the age so pointedly absent from the most important political decision making process? Where are voters getting their information – or lack thereof – from?
Fair and balanced?
The News Corporation-owned Fox News is by far and away the most popular news channel for Republicans. And its coverage of climate issues leaves a great deal to be desired.
An analysis of prime time programs on Fox News has found that 93% of their coverage of climate science in 2012 was misleading. The report, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, analysed six months of prime time segments covering climate change in early 2012.
The Wall Street Journal, News Corporation’s other media flagship, didn’t fare much better. The report also included WSJ opinion pieces over the last year and found 81% of their climate change coverage was misleading.
To characterise this coverage as biased doesn’t capture the magnitude of their treatment of climate science. News Corporation is promoting an inversion of reality. For the past several decades, there has been a strengthening scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming."
What happened to Climate Change? Fox News and the 2012 election
4 comments:
Especially since it is January 9th and we have seen no significant snowfall in Chicagoland the question of just how severe is global warming is on everyone's mind. What's worse is even with such effects that we are seeing, it is still not discussed extensively in the political arena. I think this is due in part to the fact that since America is so centered on ourselves people, and the government, are focused much more on our own socio-economic well-being than the betterment of the world. The massive oil reserves we have ready to tap into are a growing worry, and the pause in growth of the alternative energy industry (or at least the pause in publicity of the alternative energy industry) only adds to the problem.
I am beginning to wonder if 2013 will knock out 2012 for the warmest year.. Though on certain occasions the weather has been quite frigid, I feel like global warming and carbon pollution are really affecting us this year in particular. I could only hope that President Obama sticks to what he said and helps the environment in his next four years as President!
The majority of Americans are not concerned with climate change at all, like Nate said issues such as soci-economic well-being are just overall more important to the general public. I feel like something even more distract than warmer temperatures has to happen in order for this to become more discussed in politics.
I completely agree with Valeria. Many Americans aren't aware of how detrimental snowfall is to our city or anywhere in this country because of the other social economic problems that are being brought to attention.
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