I attended a lecture earlier this year at Uvic, by a famous enviromental journalist that is one of the Uvic alumni. He arrived a little bit late, but that could be understood because he travels on his pedal bicycle. He gave us a rundown of many of the enviromental problems afflicting our country today. He is of the Suzuki class of enviromentalists; which means he is a person that loses sleep at night over the current state of the enviroment. This kind-hearted man has dedicated his life to delivering the scientific facts concerning the state of the enviroment to the public. His aim, is to create a better Canada for many generations to come: As soon as he remembers this thought, he is able to fall asleep at night.
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This man was very encouraging to the room full of wide-eyed students that hoped one day to be journalists themselves. He told the room that there has never been a better time to be an enviromental journalist. Back in the late 1990's, it was very tough for him to sell his articles. Nowadays, there is always some magazine ready to buy articles written by enviromental journalists.
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But who are these people that we entrust to deliver us our science? Why do we go to a journalist to learn about science, rather than the scientist? Wouldn't it be more proficient to skip out the middle man. The problem of journlists is the same problem that one encounters in the game of telephone that is played in elementary school. The class would be arranged in a cirlce, and a message is started with one person. He whispers it in an ear and the message gets passed around the circle until it comes back to the original creator who barely recognizes the message that he originally uttered. Who are these journalists that we entrust to feed us our knowledge?
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In a 2005 study of American journalists and the American public, both were asked where they stood on the political spectrum. Interestingly enough, journalists varied greatly from the public.
The Graph shows it clearly and irrefutably. Journalists are typically more left wing than the general public (They also apparently have less time on their hands compared to the general public, considering their refusal rates). One must keep in mind that this includes all journalists. This graph does not narrow its focus on the "left-wing hippy-nut-job" field of enviromental journalism.
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Enviromental journalists grow up in left wing enviroments. They live with vegan parents that have the full work of Karl Marx on their bookshelves. At a young age, the become afflicted with David Suzuki syndrome. When they start their research topic on the enviroment, they have already made up their mind on which side they will argue. Now it's just a matter of finding a scientist that has data to prove that global warming is destroying this earth.
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What is needed is a revamp of vegan peoples bookshelves. We must supply all the vegans in north america, with the complete works of Ronald Regan, Malthus and other hardcore conservatives. If we did this, children of Vegans would grow up to argue that global warming is a giant myth, and therefore is not worth worrying about. This would of course have the effect of destroying the field of enviromental journalism; there would be nothing to write about any longer. And then the enviromental journalist that came to my school would be out of a job. A whole sector of scientists and journalists would be out of work. Al Gore would no longer be famous and David Suzuki would become the title of some ancient Japanese myth that we never took the time to learn.
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But maybe arguing to save nature, is enough for most left-wing people. They don't want to experience the vast wilderness of Kanaskis summertimes that includes bears, lakes and forest-ranger dicks. They would rather stay home and Tivo the 'Nature of things': on every sunday at 7pm on CBC.
2 comments:
I happen to be a student at Uvic and to it doesn't seem like a very strong argument to critisize left wing environmental journalists.. If you have ever taken an Environmental Science class or and Earth and Ocean Science class, you would see that it isn't simply environmental journalists that are speaking up at Uvic.
Scientific Models have demonstrated and a lot of research has been conducted to suggest that it is real. Of course the change is incremental and if you have ever been to a big city and seen the smog you must know that it was not always there. If you look at something called the carbon cycle and understand that we are disrupting it and exacerbating the world's natural greenhouse effect, you would see that these changes are anthropogenic. If you look at something called clear cutting and realize that photosynthesis requires plant and trees in order to take place, you would realize that we are limiting nature's ability to engage in it's own version of carbon sequestration.
None of these facts need to come from environmental journalism, they come science. And my hope is that environmental journalist know the basic when they report on this stuff. Also, your graph was an american graph and you can't simply conclude that all environmental journalist are mostly left wing because of one graph. I would also suggest exposing yourself to academic literature on the subject if you don't like what journalists have to say. And besides even right wing journalists agree that climate change is taking place; they simply argue that it is not anthropogenic. Either way it is real.
Wow, we have an actual comment that one of us didn't write! I'll tell marc to reply. Also I should point out that clear cutting has a major impact on erosion but for oxygenation of the planet we still rely on photosynthetic algae and diatoms in the ocean for the vast, vast, vast majority of our O2, and global warming will if anything, increase the amount of those little fuckers out there. Carbon sequestration is indeed going to be limited, but hopefully we can just find a way to start hiding it in pandas or orangutans or something.
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