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Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast on the morning of August 30 as a Category 3 storm with wind speeds of 125 miles per hour. Major print news outlets such as The Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Washington Post included the role of climate change in supercharging the storm in their reporting. With little exception, however, national TV news coverage of Hurricane Idalia failed to link the unique factors associated with the storm — including the record ocean temperatures that fed its rapid intensification — to the climate crisis. From August 29-30, an analysis by Media Matters found: Less than 2% of the 780 segments and weathercasts about Hurricane Idalia across national TV news mentioned climate change. Major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC — aired 44 hours and 4 minutes of coverage across 691 segments or weathercasts about the hurricane, but only 10 mentioned climate change. MSNBC mentioned the connection between Idalia and climate change 5 times, CNN mentioned it 4 times and Fox News mentioned climate change once. Corporate broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — aired a combined 89 segments or weathercasts that discussed Hurricane Idalia over 2 hours and 32 minutes, but only 2 of those segments mentioned climate change.
Most people don’t actually know that level of detail about how fossil-fuel-induced warming affects temperature. Having that be part of the public discourse makes it easier to move off fossil fuels
Most people don’t actually know that level of detail about how fossil-fuel-induced warming affects temperature. Having that be part of the public discourse makes it easier to move off fossil fuels
That’s why the fossil corporations spend billions to suppress that information
I think everyone would be a lot happier if it was fossil companies with billions of dollars not fossil fuel companies