The wheel of first-time climate dudes - HEATED
▻https://heated.world/p/the-wheel-of-first-time-climate-dudes
Over the last few days, many readers have asked me to watch and review Michael Moore’s new climate change documentary, “Planet of the Humans.”
The documentary—released for free on YouTube for Earth Day—makes some controversial arguments. They include:
Renewable energy is a sham;
Environmentalists have been duped by the fossil fuel industry into thinking it can work;
The only way to save humanity now is through consumption reduction and population control.
It’s not because the movie criticizes the environmental movement. Y’all know I love criticizing the environmental movement. It’s also not because the movie contains arguments I don’t agree with. Entertaining good-faith arguments about how to stop climate change is my job, and I have no reason at present to believe Moore and director Jeffrey Gibbs argued in bad faith.
Really, the reason I don’t want to review this movie is because I’m tired of having to spend hours consuming and debunking messy-yet-blockbuster climate reporting from dudes who seemingly woke up a few mornings beforehand and decided they were climate journalists.
I feel like a hamster on a wheel: The Wheel of First Time Climate Dudes.
A caveat before everyone yells at me: Most big-moment climate journalism—particularly print and digital—is very good. And most of it is done by people of all genders who have lots of experience covering climate change.
But when a big glitzy climate journalism project does contain problems, oftentimes a male person was behind it. That’s simply a product of who gets to do big projects in this industry.
Ah ah !
▻https://www.vox.com/2019/6/6/18655590/jeffrey-goldberg-atlantic-editor-in-chief-nieman-lab-interview-cover-stories-wh
For example, Nathaniel Rich was primarily a novelist and essayist before he was given a whole issue of the New York Times Magazine to write the 30,000-word “Losing Earth.” It was a good piece of journalism in many ways, in part because Rich is a great writer. But the story’s main takeaway was that the climate crisis is the fault of human nature. That’s a harmful and inaccurate message. So nearly every climate journalist in existence had to write a criticism of that piece after it came out, this reporter included.
In climate journalism, the stakes are extremely high. The purpose of this job is to chronicle and explain the rapid escalation of an existential threat to human life so that humans have the tools they need to address the threat. We only have so many opportunities to get it right before everything goes horribly wrong.
I’m extremely tired, and frankly terrified, of how often we grant expert status to people who are not experts on the greatest existential threats we face as a species. We see it with climate change just as often as we see it with coronavirus. It’s all such a waste of extremely precious time.
DeMelle is the executive director of DeSmog, a news site that’s been covering climate disinformation since before I knew climate change existed. And over the last several weeks, he and a team of reporters have put together an enormous project documenting the extensive overlap between the fossil fuel-funded climate disinformation machine and the coronavirus disinformation machine.
►https://www.desmogblog.com/covideniers-anti-science-covid-19-denial-overlaps-climate-denial
“My motivation has always been that I don’t like liars, and I don’t like bullies,” DeMelle said. “And climate denial is a feast for both—those who enjoy confusing and distorting reality, and those who love bullying people, especially scientists. It’s just gross, and it motivates me to fight them and expose them and put them on record.”
“I’d like them to be seen forever to have been on the wrong side of history.”
