<
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/12/media-coalition-declares-journalism-should-reflect-climate-emergency-here>
"Lead partners of a global consortium of news outlets that aims to improve
reporting on the climate emergency released a statement on Monday urging
journalists everywhere to treat their coverage of the rapidly heating planet
with the same same level of urgency and intensity as they have the Covid-19
pandemic.
Since Covering Climate Now (CCNow) was co-founded in 2019 by the Columbia
Journalism Review and The Nation in association with The Guardian and WNYC,
over 460 media outlets—including Common Dreams—with a combined reach of two
billion people have become partner organizations.
CCNow and eight of those partners are now inviting media outlets to sign on to
the Climate Emergency Statement, which begins: "It's time for journalism to
recognize that the climate emergency is here. This is a statement of science,
not politics."
The statement notes that a growing number of scientists are warning of the
"climate emergency," from James Hansen, formerly of NASA, to the nearly 14,000
scientists from over 150 countries who have endorsed an emergency declaration.
"Why 'emergency'? Because words matter," the CCNow statement explains. "To
preserve a livable planet, humanity must take action immediately. Failure to
slash the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make the
extraordinary heat, storms, wildfires, and ice melt of 2020 routine and could
'render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable,' warned a recent
Scientific American article."
CCNow's initiative comes after U.S. government scientists said last week that
"carbon dioxide levels are now higher than at anytime in the past 3.6 million
years," with 2020 featuring a global surface average for CO2 of 412.5 parts per
million (PPM)—which very likely would have been higher if not for the
pandemic."
Via
libramoon@pluspora.com.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
