ABC News and Climate Emergency: A Public Forum
The climate emergency is here. Has ABC News been reporting like it?
For years, the country’s most-watched TV news outlet stayed mostly silent on climate change. And when it did break its silence, it ran lackluster, incomplete coverage.
However, ABC News recently created a dedicated climate unit and committed to tell a variety of climate stories this November as COP26 got underway. Has it been enough to undo the ignorance and confusion caused by its past silence? Is ABC News now treating the climate crisis like the biggest national and global emergency of our times?
Join our virtual public forum for a discussion on ABC News’ climate coverage. We will dive into what is needed from media organizations at the 11th hour of this climate emergency, and how we can push organizations to report on climate with more accountability, with our featured panelists:
- David Fenton, founder of Fenton: The Social Change Agency (one of the country’s leading progressive communications firms)
- Hanna E. Morris, PhD, researcher of media, culture, and the climate crisis and current postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
- Ben Franta, PhD, JD, researcher of climate accountability and current PhD student at Stanford
- Amy Westervelt, founder and executive producer of the Critical Frequency podcast network and the Drilled podcast, and co-host/co-author of the Hot Take podcast and newsletter
We have also invited executives and producers from ABC News and Disney (ABC News’ parent company) to our speaker line-up. We hope that they can join us and present their perspectives and plans on climate coverage.
Sen. Marco Rubio: "I Do Not Believe That Human Activity Is Causing These Dramatic Changes to Our Climate"
During an interview in which he expressed his readiness to be President of the United States, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) rejected the science of climate change. Rubio told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Sunday’s “This Week” that he does not accept the findings of the National Climate Assessment which warned of the damages already occurring in Florida because of human-caused global warming. He went on to claim that “these scientists” are proposing laws to “destroy our economy.”
I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That’s what I do not—and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it. Except it will destroy our economy.
Transcript:
KARL: Do you think you’re ready to be president?RUBIO: I do.
. . .
KARL: But you think you’re ready?
You think you’re qualified?
You think you have the experience to be president, if you make that decision?
RUBIO: I do, but I think we have other people, as well. I think in essence, I think our party is blessed to have a number of people in that position.
And the question is what—who’s vision is the one that our party wants to follow?
. . .
KARL: Miami, Tampa, are two of the cities that are most threatened by climate change. So putting aside your disagreement with what to do about it, do you agree with the science on this? I mean, how big a threat is climate change?
RUBIO: Yes, I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate.
Our climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that’s directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activity, I do not agree with that.
KARL: You don’t buy it. You don’t buy it.
RUBIO: I don’t know of any era in world history where the climate has been stable. Climate is always evolving, and natural disasters have always existed.
KARL: But let me get this straight, you do not think that human activity, its production of CO2, has caused warming to our planet.
RUBIO: I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That’s what I do not—and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it. Except it will destroy our economy.
KARL: It’s talk like that that Rubio hopes will appeal to the conservatives he would need to win the Republican nomination.