Media Criticism

I read through an entry from last week on the Columbia Journalism Review website that highlights a point I made last week about the power of the presidency. The presidential candidates promise all manner of vague changes to the federal government but they bypass the problem of passing legislation through Congress. Columbia Journalism Review had an article about the generalizations made by the presidential candidates on local environmental issues during the course of their campaigning.

I suggest that every voter who thinks that candidates like Obama, Clinton and McCain can bring change should read this article. Curtis Brainard outlines local media efforts to draw out responses to environmental issues at a local level from national candidates. Each newspaper started out with good intentions but ended with “round-up� stories and concessions that the candidates had no specific plans for ecological areas like Chesapeake Bay and the Everglades. While Brainard concludes that a mixture of factors contribute to candidate ambivalence about local environmental issues, I think that the main issue falls in the separation of responsibilities within our government.

The president is the leader of our military forces first and a cog in the checks-and-balances machine; everything else after that is gravy according to the Constitution. There is no need for presidential candidates to lay out individual strategies for each state because that would be a massive overreach for the executive office. The ultimate responsibility for environmental problems lies with governors, state legislatures and members of the U.S. Congress. It is ridiculous to ask presidential candidates to get specific on a local watershed when we should be asking for specifics on conservation and clean fuel programs with a national scope. Journalists and voters need to demand detailed policies from the right people. I wouldn’t be impressed if a candidate like John McCain had a specific plan for the Fox River Valley in Wisconsin; I would be annoyed that he wasn’t thinking about issues within his purview.

The media’s new baby is going above and beyond their journalistic duties to expose the issue of global warming. It is refreshing that the media has gone from zero to environmentalist in a hurry but a new Foreign Policy article exposes one of the more insidious results of the “green press.� Global warming is the new Communism and every side is girding their defenses to protect their natural resources interests.

The point of the Foreign Policy article is that the expansion of interest in global warming by world leaders has turned a substantive issue into a tool against tyranny. The military and civilian leaders alike have claimed that melting ice caps and desertification will lead to anarchy in lesser states. These assumptions make people in Africa and Asia seem like brutes in a way that is all too familiar in these areas. I think the point that Foreign Policy makes most effectively is that an overwhelming supply of natural resources are more dangerous than a dearth of resources.

The press has picked up on this new global antagonism because newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post need to stay current. The excitement over global warming has made editors and writers fall over each other on their way toward the top of the green mountain top. We need papers to write editorials on a regular basis denouncing this disturbing use of environmentalism as a way of creating a new breach between the developed and developing worlds. If we are going to solve climate change issues, our journalists need to break through the same garbage we went through in the Cold War to cultivate the moment of promise we have in front of us.

Though magazines like Popular Science are not considered part of the mainstream media, they are still an important source of information. How they present scientific information influences how people view science and technology. This, in turn, influences the actions of readers.

The August 2007 issue just passed across my desk, and I thought an article on its treatment of green technology was in order. Many of the articles revolve around the issue of the environment, which is interesting because it suggests that the general perception of the public is changing. When it comes to the environment, scientists often sound like doomsday predictors; our habits today have serious consequences in the foreseeable future.

However, the magazine offers a host of solutions to the problem. The article “Choking At The Olympics”, for instance, describes the methods by which China is trying to clean air for the 2008 Olympic Games. Most of the articles, in fact, are about the environment and deal with advancing technology to protect the planet. There are all sorts of interesting nuggets in here, including an idea to “re-ice the arctic” by building a giant water-powered ice machine. There are blueprints of everything from an environmentally friendly laptop to pumps that prevent hurricanes.

The ideas themselves are worth reading, and the issue as a whole reveals something new about the American scientific consciousness: we realize we face serious consequences if we do not act to protect our world. “Save the Trees”-style campaigns are no longer enough; we need technological innovation. We’re looking to science to pull us out of this mire, and, from the looks of it, science is working to deliver.

My only worry is that news of scientific progress may cause some to ignore their personal roles in protecting the environment. While technological advancement is necessary, it is not sufficient to sustaining life as we know it. We cannot rely too much on technology to solve our woes; by the time the scientists come up with new answers, it may be too late. Ideally, other media will do their jobs and speak this message, too.