Ben Macklin
Climate change is an issue that has been enveloped into politics over the years. Each year, new research gives insight and better predictions into the expected damages and occurrences caused by climate change. As scholarly papers are produced, news sources are able to choose information and write a narrative on the issue. With climate change, the sculpted narrative is often found to be urgent and threatening. As some political parties began associating themselves with ideas about solving climate change, news sources went back and forth on the severity of climate change and its validity. These claims make it difficult for news sources to portray information in an accurate way and make sources seem untrustworthy.
Some right-wing news sources such as Fox News began having guests appear on their show such as Jesse Watters proclaiming “You can fight climate change with suntan lotion, its no big deal,” Claims and beliefs such as this, while not common, impact the presentation of climate change on a large scale. There are many different ways in which climate change has an impact on people around the world, such as the increase of tropical storms, droughts, flooding, etc. The opinion such as Watters is dangerous for the individuals who are impacted by climate change by avoiding the cause of the issue. It is not difficult to raise support for communities who have been impacted by the effects of climate change after the impact has been made but it is difficult to raise the support to prevent the impact from occurring.
The politics of climate change also falls into corporations that politics revolve around. Many of the major corporations that affect the politics of the United States, for example, are causing the enhancement of climate change. It is estimated that the oil and gas industry alone produces around 50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and gas can be used to shape the perspective of how well a president ran their term. Lower gas prices and more affordable oil can be an indicator of a good economy. If the oil and gas industries were to accommodate new emission regulations that would be required to reduce the growth of climate change to a safe level, the cost of oil and gas will increase and therefore negatively reflect on the economy. The complicated issue of paying more in the present for the benefit of the future is difficult to enact upon in politics when re-elections are at stake. Were a president during their first term to enforce strict emission regulations, the benefit will be seen years later but during their re-election process, the impact they had on the economy could be seen as devastating.
Due to the intense relation of climate change and politics, the news reports from a political standpoint. A political standpoint from the news causes exaggerations in information to be portrayed to the public in an attempt to shift political opinions. Exaggerated information leads to the lack of trust when new data comes out and goes against what a news source might have previously said. Overall, the news is a source of spreading information to individuals, sometimes the only source towards these individuals, and the contrast between different sources makes it difficult for a common consensus to be met, leading to little progress to solve the issues of climate change.