by Kate Yodergrist
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Scientists are pretty sure that the Earth is hotter than ever 125,000 yearsBut the news media is moving forward, trying to keep on top of the fire hose of suppressed news – from the daily chaos of the Trump administration to the breaking developments in the war against Iran. The shift in focus began during the Covid-19 pandemic and, despite temporary setbacks, has accelerated in recent years: from its peak in 2021, global news coverage Climate change is reduced by 38 percentAccording to data from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Media and Climate Change Observatory.
Many journalists are busy digging 3 million pages of Epstein files Instead of the latest scientific reports, though, you can still find news of some major recent findings, including estimates Sea level is dramatically underestimated And that there is global warming accelerated “significantly” Over the past decade.
Last year, the first of Trump’s second term, the major broadcast network in the United States Cut their climate coverage by 35 percent Compared to the previous year, according to a recent report by Media Matters, a watchdog. “The competition, the ‘flood zone’ strategy from the administration, is making it very difficult for anything that isn’t urgent right now,” said Alison Fisher, director of the nonprofit’s climate and energy program.
The shift in focus has real-world consequences. When media coverage of an issue stops, it can be difficult to generate enthusiasm for protest and policy change. It’s out of sight, out of mind, says Anthony Leisrowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Ordinary people don’t spend their time reading scientific papers or talking to climate scientists over their backyard fences. “Like, literally, billions of people know about climate change because the media reports it,” Leisrowitz said.
When writers and editors prioritize — or de-prioritize — a particular issue, it sends a signal to both policymakers and the public. “They use one of the most powerful tools in politics, which is to determine what issues are talked about and what aren’t talked about, and within that, what range of opinions are aired on those issues,” said Mark Hartsgaard, co-founder and executive director of Covering Climate Now, a nonprofit covering change. “So of course, when we stop talking about climate change in the press, the public figures, ‘Oh, well, I guess it’s not important anymore’ or ‘Maybe they figured it out’ or whatever.
You can see the recent decline in climate coverage in the United States by looking at some of the nation’s biggest legacy newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. Although the New York Times has published a large number of articles about global warming, its coverage has declined 66 percent from its peak in October 2021, when it published 646 articles mentioning the topic, and this January, when it published 221.
People are noticing the decline. Back in 2022, 35 percent According to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Americans say they hear about global warming in the media at least once a week. According to the latest data for December, Only 17 percent did.
If you take the long view, ignoring climate change is actually the norm in the US mainstream media, Hartsgaard said. Around 2019, though, they started paying more attention. Inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, young people around the world began skipping school on Friday to demand that their governments take action on climate change. Ahead of the 2020 US election, progressives are excited about the “Green New Deal”. Future President Joe Biden is under pressure Adopting plans for climate change. At the same time, organizations like Hartsgaard’s Covering Climate Now, founded in 2019, have pushed media outlets around the world to connect the dots with extreme weather, providing context about how greenhouse gas emissions have exacerbated floods, fueled wildfires and worsened droughts.
“When you get those two things together — a wave of popular opinion and mobilization at the same time as a wave of media coverage and 7 million people on the streets — that’s when you break climate silence,” Hartsgaard said.
News coverage of climate change dropped when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but quickly picked up again as world leaders began to pass policies to address rising greenhouse gas emissions. Biden has made tackling climate change a priority, and in 2022, he signed the nation’s first comprehensive climate law, filled with incentives to quickly switch to clean technologies. (This has mostly been repealed under President Donald Trump.)
Then, just like that, the media’s initiative to cover climate change began to fade again, and experts aren’t sure exactly why. Perhaps the passage of major climate legislation in the US has reduced the sense of urgency. The decline in climate news during global coverage continues to deepen in 2025 Another 14 percent drop from previous years, and was particularly noticeable in the United States.
Widespread “climate whooshing” erupted across the country after Trump took office promising to “drill, baby, drill.” business Suddenly stop talking about climate commitments They were trumpeted a few years ago. Many congressional Democrats Avoided talking about climate change Directly, the phrase disappeared Their lectures, social media accounts and podcast appearances. Then the Trump administration went after the news outlet, Public broadcasting pulls funding from NPR and PBS stations and Threat of cancellation of broadcasting license Trump did not like the coverage of the major networks.
“You have corporate media owners who are increasingly fearful of the Trump administration labeling climate change a ‘hoax’ and climate action a ‘scam,’ right?” Fisher Dr.
Fisher said he was concerned by the lack of coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC of the Trump administration’s push back on climate research and environmental regulations, as well as the downplaying of extreme weather’s connection to climate change.
CBS had long been a leader in climate coverage among the broadcast networks, but that focus suddenly changed Late last yearThe media was found to matter. Earlier in the year, the Trump administration approved a merger between Paramount Global (which owns CBS) and Skydance Media. Brandon Carr, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Advised to confirm the merger “Diversity of Views Across the Political and Ideological Spectrum” in Networks. Shortly after hiring its new editor-in-chief Barry Weiss in October, CBS shut down. Most of its climate groupsalong with about 1,000 other employees. Despite sea ice melting, one of the network’s few remaining climate divisions since focusing on polar bear populations in the Norwegian Arctic, is a common talking point among climate deniers. “Experts say bears are still in trouble long term, but hey, experts have been wrong before,” said Tony Dokupil, anchor. evening newsto end the segment.
“We know what they’re saying on Fox News — it looks pretty much the same,” Fisher said. “Beyond volume, I think this change in the way the climate story is being told is even more dangerous.”
There have been layoffs across the news industry, including at The Washington Post Dismissed most of his climate team Last month, more than a dozen reporters and editors, as part of massive layoffs. Max Boykoff, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder who tracks media coverage, suggested that newsroom decisions to shift their attention away from climate change may be driven by the perception that the public has “climate fatigue” — weariness surrounding a chronic crisis with no easy solutions. “Editors might be evaluating it and putting people on different beats,” he said. The waning enthusiasm from outlets to highlight climate stories has frustrated some journalists: longtime NBC climate reporter Chase Cain recently resigned from his role, Says he’s tired of fighting to get his story out there.
Leisrowitz, of the Yale Program in Climate Change Communication, emphasized that the number of Americans who are concerned about climate change and want to take action to reduce emissions has not really decreased. Climate change, however, is less of a priority for voters than ever — numbering 24 out of 25 issues, according to Information from the Yale program – This is mainly because other things have gained importance. For liberal Democrats in particular, this includes the protection of democracy, the treatment of immigrants and the disruption of public services. “It’s just that all these other issues have now taken priority over climate change as a voting issue,” Leisrowitz said.
Hartsgaard argues that there is a large audience waiting for more articles about life on a warm planet. something 80 to 89 percent People worldwide – and 74 percent in the United States — want their governments to take stronger action on climate change, according to the survey. Outlets around the world are turning to climate coverage, gaining audiences and making money from it, he argued, The Guardian and France TelevisionThe French public broadcaster, which improved its ratings after incorporating climate change into its weather forecasts “If you’re a smart newsroom person, you recognize that this is a business opportunity, not just a journalistic responsibility,” Hartsgaard said.
Still, experts say big-picture trends in declining climate coverage will be difficult to reverse in the near future, even as extreme weather continues to draw attention to the consequences of a warming planet. As long as Trump is in office, a steady stream of chaos in the news is likely to continue, with media intimidation, climate silence and climate stories crowding out, Fisher said.
However, Lisarowitz is hopeful that the public will not forget what they learned when the mainstream media began covering the crisis in earnest. “Just because it’s not being talked about in the media,” he said, “doesn’t mean it’s suddenly disappeared or it’s been erased from their memory banks.”
This article originally appeared on grist A https://grist.org/language/global-heating-climate-news-drought-chaos/.
GRIST is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories about climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org
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This is the story Originally published by grist.
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