02/10/2019

Greta Thunberg’s Radical Climate Change Fairy Tale Is Exactly The Story We Need

The Conversation - 

Swedish activist and student Greta Thunberg, centre, takes part in the Climate Strike in Montreal on Friday, Sept. 27, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
It has been just over a year since 16-year-old Greta Thunberg started her “school strike for climate” outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. Since then, she has spoken to increasingly large crowds — including most recently in MontrĂ©al.
But there are many reasons why people are still talking about Thunberg’s Sept. 23 speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. She spoke with knowledge, clarity and passion well beyond her years.
What I find especially significant about the talk is her inclusion of a critique of economic growth in the climate change story frame. “We are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” Thunberg said.
Scholars and activists share Thunberg’s concerns about the current system of endless economic growth. For example, Prof. David Barash powerfully equates endless growth to a Ponzi scheme. It is a system, he says, “predicated on the illusion that it will always be possible to make future payments owing to yet more exploitation down the road.”
Economist Juliet Schor similarly warns about the resource depletion implications for economic growth. She highlights that endless growth will lead to “blowback… which is now happening with the climate system, oceans and forests.”
Prof. Thomas Homer-Dixon succinctly offers that “it’s becoming increasingly clear that endless material growth is incompatible with the long-term viability of Earth’s environment.” And writer Naomi Klein refers to the “god of economic growth,” powerfully proposing that “our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.”

Where are the stories?
Thoughtful and well-researched scholarship makes clear that economic growth and environmental crises are related. And yet non-academic writing linking endless growth economics and climate change is almost non-existent.
I have conducted a content analysis on the Canadian Major Dailies database. In the 12 months prior to Thunberg’s talk there were 850 newspaper articles (including opinion editorials and letters) with “climate change” in the headline. Of these, 372 — or 44 per cent — were related to the economy. And yet only one letter to the editor raised concerns about economic growth in the era of climate change.
This is what makes Thunberg’s mention of “fairy tales of eternal economic growth” so remarkable — she put economic growth and climate change into the same frame.
It is easy to think that economic growth is essential — that we have always had growth at the core of economic policy. But scholars point out that this is not the case. Bill McKibben and Peter Victor point out that our “fixation” on economic growth as an “explicit object of government policy” began in the mid-20th century.
And in those 50 years, McKibben highlights that economic growth has not only devastated the planet, but also fostered inequity, insecurity and “is no longer making us happy.”
Cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff offers that “all of our knowledge makes use of frames, and every word is defined through the frames it neurally activates. All thinking and talking involves frames .”
In other words, we understand and act upon climate change based on what has been framed with the climate change stories we are told.

Time to change the story frames
The good news is that climate change stories can change. Not that long ago, there were few stories about climate change. Today, the number has dramatically increased.
Until recently, there were not many stories that linked climate change to extreme weather events. Increasingly, these stories are being told.
Climate change activist Greta Thunberg on the Malizia II boat off Plymouth, England, Wed. Aug. 14, 2019. AP Photo
Now it is time to question economics and foster discussions about the hard decisions and changes that need to be made. It is clear that we cannot simply consume differently — we must consume less.
Now it is time to frame climate change stories with eternal economic growth critiques. Now is the time for climate change frames that question whether a finite planet can sustain eternal growth. Now is the time for climate change frames to include voices like Klein’s, who proposes that “the frenetic and indiscriminate consumption of essentially disposable products can no longer be the system’s goal.”
And now is the time to be grateful for a 16-year-old who sailed across the ocean and dared to tell the world’s leaders that the fairy tale must end.

Links
at No comments:

PM Sledges Media Over Climate

ABC Media Watch

Is the media misrepresenting the government’s action on climate change? Climate experts say no.



Transcript
ROS CHILDS: So what did you make of the Prime Minister’s speech?
AMANDA McKENZIE: The only reaction that I, that came to me was this is colossal bullshit, the claim that Australia’s doing enough on climate change. And I’m sorry to use crude language but I couldn’t think of a fairer term.
- ABC News Channel, 26 September, 2019
Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.
And criticism of our politicians does not get much blunter than that. Or at least not from organisations set up to champion science.
So, what did Scott Morrison say that got the Climate Council’s CEO Amanda McKenzie so riled up?
It was this claim that Australia’s doing a fine job in the fight against global warming, but getting no credit for its work:
SCOTT MORRISON: Australia’s internal though, and global critics on climate change willingly overlook, or perhaps ignore our achievements, as the facts simply don’t fit the narrative they wish to project about our contribution. Australia is responsible for just 1.3 per cent of global emissions. Australia is doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary.
- ABC News Channel, 26 September, 2019
Ahead of his speech to the UN — as Greta Thunberg’s rebuke to global leaders hogged the headlines — the PM was telling reporters in New York that he believes media lies may be to blame for his government’s bad rap on global warming:
SCOTT MORRISON: What I’ve found in engaging with neighbours, and even here, is often times the criticisms that have been made about Australia are completely false and they’re completely misleading and people have had a prejudiced view about what Australia is actually doing. You know, they get their information, now where do they get their information from? Who knows. Maybe they read it, maybe they read it, but from what’s come out in the media and other things like this …
REPORTER: Is this fake news?
SCOTT MORRISON: … I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is when I’ve spoken to them they’ve been surprised to learn about the facts about what Australia has been doing.
- Speers, Sky News, 26 September, 2019
Cue for some in the media to fact check the PM’s claims.
And for the Climate Council’s Professor Lesley Hughes to press home her CEO’s attack by going on ABC Radio to give the government’s record another massive fail:
LESLEY HUGHES: We remain probably the highest per capita emitter of any developed countries, even higher than Saudi Arabia. And so that fall in per capita emissions, which has been rather slight, is mainly due not to government action but because we’ve got more people.
So it’s not hard to overachieve on really dismal targets and the fact is that our emissions continue to rise ...
- PM, ABC Radio, 26 September, 2019
Now, some will claim the Climate Council is an activist group — distinguished scientists though they are — who would naturally be critical of government efforts.
So, we decided to contact some leading Australian climate experts for their verdict on the PM’s charge.
Associate Professor Malte Meinshausen is from the Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne. Professor Frank Jotzo is director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at the ANU. Bill Hare is a founder and CEO of Climate Analytics in Perth. Professor Steven Sherwood is from the Climate Change Research Centre at the  University of New South Wales. And the ANU’s Associate Professor Nerilie Abram was a lead author on last week’s IPCC report.
A more distinguished panel would be hard to find. And we asked them all: is Australia doing enough to combat global warming, as the PM maintains?
And they answered:
No …
- Email, Malte Meinshausen, Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Frank Jotzo, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, ANU, 27 September, 2019
No ...
- Email, Bill Hare, Climate Analytics, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Steven Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW, 27 September, 2019
No ...
- Email, Nerilie Abram, ANU, 28 September, 2019
We then asked them: is the media’s reporting on global warming and the government’s climate policies false or misleading?
And they answered:
No …
- Email, Malte Meinshausen, Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Frank Jotzo, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, ANU, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Bill Hare, Climate Analytics, 27 September, 2019
Not systematically.
- Email, Steven Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW, 27 September, 2019
I can’t give a simple yes or no.
- Email, Dr Nerilie Abram, ANU, 28 September, 2019
And finally we asked them: is the PM right to blame the media for creating an impression that Australia is not doing enough?
And they told us:
No …
- Email, Malte Meinshausen, Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Frank Jotzo, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, ANU, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Bill Hare, Climate Analytics, 27 September, 2019
No …
- Email, Steven Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW, 27 September, 2019
No ...
- Email, Nerilie Abram, ANU, 28 September, 2019
So, pretty much a unanimous verdict on all three questions.
We also asked those climate experts for comments, which you can read in full on our website.
But on the specific question of media reporting of climate change, Nerilie Abram told us:
Some parts of the media do a very good job of reporting on global warming, others do not.
- Email, Nerilie Abram, ANU, 28 September, 2019
While Bill Hare made that more specific, telling Media Watch:
The reporting in the ABC, Guardian and former Fairfax press is generally accurate and non-ideological.
- Email, Bill Hare, Climate Analytics, 27 September, 2019
And Professor Meinshausen finished it off by observing more pointedly that the:
Murdoch press and some radio stations are often willfully misleading … But not in the direction that Scott Morrison suggested.
- Email, Malte Meinshausen, Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne, 27 September, 2019
And finally, the Science Media Centre — whom we also consulted, and which specialises in proper reporting of science — observed:
… the major issue is with opinion leaders who use the media to undermine the science.
Blaming the media is akin to shooting the messenger.
- Email, Australian Science Media Centre, 27 September, 2019
So, if anyone is being misleading here, it seems to be the Prime Minister.
Who, as Janine Perrett observed on Sky, may have picked up a few tips at the White House from his American counterpart:
JANINE PERRETT: … what I found interesting was the blaming the Australian media. I think he’s had a good week with Donald Trump, blame the media, fake news, there it is.
- Speers, Sky News, 26 September, 2019
And we did ask the Prime Minister’s office to point us to any media stories they considered unfair or misleading, but they did not respond.

Read the full responses from:
Links
at No comments:

Scott Morrison Is Trying To Turn Himself Into The Ocker Trump – Australian Media Beware

The Guardian - 

The prime minister has demonstrated a Trumpesque ability to fudge, mislead and obfuscate
“Scott Morrison’s meeting Donald Trump truly was the apprentice genuflecting to the master.” Photograph: John Minchillo/AP 
We are at a two-fold tipping point on climate change – the point at which afterwards there is no return. The two tipping points are, first, for action to ameliorate climate change, and second, to report on it with credibility.
You could argue the final year at which action to prevent serious damage from climate change can occur without horrendous upheaval to our economy and society is 2020. If Trump is re-elected the likelihood of the USA doing anything to reduce emissions will be gone – lost amid the demented ramblings of an insecure sociopath whose main concern will be to stay out of jail and to hide his insecurity with insane blather about how great he thinks he is and truly weird tweets mentioning his daughter.
For Australia perhaps the tipping point is already passed.
After this year’s election we remain saddled for three years with a federal government laden with climate-change deniers and charlatans who may or may not accept the science, but who sure as heck accept the political opportunity from scaring people about pursing action.
This is what the ALP is currently wrestling with. Yes, at a minimum we need to reduce emissions by 45% below 2005 levels, but to do that in eight years will require a much more severe effort than it would have had the ALP been able to enact policies now.
So you can see some political reasoning for the ALP to think it is better to focus on reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 rather than the 45% cut by 2030. Because, as was made clear again this year, the LNP is more than willing to smash the fear button during an election.
It is why the prime minister’s committed the most contemptible kind of hypocrisy when he suggested in his speech at the UN this week that “we must respect and harness the passion and aspiration of our younger generations, we must guard against others who would seek to compound or, worse, facelessly exploit their anxiety for their own agendas”.
Someone should introduce Scott Morrison to the disingenuous fear monger who during the election campaign went around the country telling everyone that “Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend”.
If this year’s election has shown us anything there is no advantage at all from being the only major party with an emissions policy that supports the science.
We spent six weeks with far too many journalists losing their minds trying to discover a middle ground between logic and lies, and so ended up arguing the big issue on climate change was the cost of the ALP’s policy on the economy, rather than the manifestly inadequate cuts being proposed by the LNP.
And that brings us to the second tipping point.
Scott Morrison’s meeting Donald Trump truly was the apprentice genuflecting to the master. Morrison has demonstrated a Trumpesque ability to fudge, mislead and obfuscate, and to also suggest things are the opposite of reality.
With Trump there is no ulterior motive – his total lack of introspection combined with total ignorance leads him to lie and believe his own reality; for Morrison however the application is much more tactical.
So we saw him telling journalists that the argument on climate change has been “settled in Australian politics” – that there is agreement on the action: “The action that meets, that we meet our 2020 targets and we meet our 2030 targets. And that we have a $3 billion climate solutions fund, a policy for meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets.”
What bullshit.
Those targets themselves are pathetic – a climate-change pea and thimble trick involving dodgy accounting of land-use and carry-over credits. Even with this the targets are well below what is argued as needed by scientists. If we excluded land use our emissions would have risen 7% above 2005 levels, rather than fallen by 11%.
Our government is so useless, they are essentially cheating in order to underperform.
As for that $3bn climate solutions fund: does any sentient being truly believe $3bn over 10 years is enough to adequately reduce emissions?
The government brings in $505bn a year in revenue, so spending less than half a percent of that each year over 10 years will do the trick?
If that were so then we would not be worrying about climate change – every nation in the world would have signed that pitifully small cheque and gone on their merry way.
And so we are at a tipping point.
The prime minister of this country is now suggesting the media are lying about the government’s climate change efforts.
He told reporters in New York last week, “See what I’ve found in engaging with neighbours, and even here, is often times the criticisms that have been made about Australia are completely false and they’re completely misleading and people have had a prejudiced view about what Australia is actually doing. They get their information now, where do they get their information from? Who knows? Maybe they read it, maybe they read it. But from what’s come out in the media and other things like this, how they get their information…”
I don’t know about the prime minister, but I get my information from the Department of the Environment and Energy, which shows that annual emissions have risen every quarter since the government introduced its “emissions reduction fund”.
The transformation into Ocker Trump (“Who knows? Maybe they read it, maybe they read it”) is now so obvious that no journalist or media company can miss it.
The tipping point is here.
After looking across the Pacific and raising eyebrows at how the US media has covered Trump, now Australian journalists have our chance to demonstrate how they would do it.
The tipping point is here. Falter now and there is no going back – not only for our climate, but also the credibility of journalists and our media organisations.

Links
at No comments: