Do Eco Pervs Read Climate Porn?

As Britain slowly recovers from it's most sizzling July in history, a left-leaning research group slams the media for sensationalizing climate change.

The Institute for Public Policy Research analyzed over 600 environmental news articles and described some of the coverage as being "tantamount to climate porn".

From BBC Online.

Into the "alarmist" camp the authors put articles published in newspapers such as the Independent, Financial Times and Sunday Times, as well as statements from environmental groups, academics including James Lovelock and Lord May, and some government programmes.

"It is appropriate to call [what some of these groups publish] 'climate porn', because on some level it is like a disaster movie," Mr Retallack told the BBC News website.

"The public become disempowered because it's too big for them; and when it sounds like science fiction, there is an element of the unreal there."

Horror Film
No British newspaper has taken climate change to its core agenda quite like the Independent, which regularly publishes graphic-laden front pages threatening global meltdown, with articles inside continuing the theme.

A recent leader, commenting on the heatwave then affecting Britain, said: "Climate change is an 18-rated horror film. This is its PG-rated trailer.

"The awesome truth is that we are the last generation to enjoy the kind of climate that allowed civilisation to germinate, grow and flourish since the start of settled agriculture 11,000 years ago."

Ian Birrell, the newspaper's deputy editor, said climate change was serious enough to merit this kind of linguistic treatment.

"The Independent led the way on campaigning on climate change and global warming because clearly it's a crucial issue facing the world," he said.

"You can see the success of our campaign in the way that the issue has risen up the political agenda."

Mr Retallack, however, believes some newspapers take an alarmist line on climate change through commercial motives rather than ideology.

"Every newspaper is a commercial organisation," he said, "and when you have a terrifying image on the front of the paper, you are likely to sell more copies than when you write about solutions."

Mr Birrell denied the charge. "You put on your front page what you deem important and what you think is important to your readers," he said.

"If our readers thought we put climate change on our front pages for the same reason that porn mags put naked women on their front pages, they would stop reading us.

"And I disagree that there's an implicit 'counsel of despair', because while we're campaigning on big issues such as ice caps, we also do a large amount on how people can change their own lives, through cycling, installing energy-efficient lighting, recycling, food miles; we've been equally committed on these issues."

Now I've always had my suspicions about the coverage of things environmental. There's such an industry built up around telling us what a bunch of shit bags we are for using the wrong sort of aerosol and imperiling the planet. Yet many scientists think climate change is caused by natural phenomena such as sunspots and volcanic activity.

It's not as though climate change is anything new. Freak weather conditions have been freaking people out since time immemorial.

In London for instance, between the 15th and 19th centuries, there were 23 documented cases of the River Thames freezing over. This was such a novelty for Londoners that special celebratory frost fairs were held.

Ancient peoples used to offer sacrifices to weather gods to avoid unpredictable climate change and there's no mention in the bible of Noah blaming the flood on Shem's use of underarm deodorant.

Yet, if causing paroxysms of guilt can help newspaper shift units it's got to be worth filling people's heads with visions of man made weather apocalypses.

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