Who Cares About Climate Change?

A recent study published in the Energy Research & Social Science journal analyses the framing of the Northern Gateway Pipeline in the media. The study aims to identify the role climate change plays in shaping the media’s perspective of the pipeline versus other, more narrow, environmental risks. The article hypothesizes that the risks of the pipeline are framed on a local scale concerned with terrestrial or aquatic spills and fail to recognize the greater risk of accelerating the current climate crisis. The authors of the study, Nichole Dusyk, John Axsen and Kia Dullemond all work at Simon Fraser University as part of their Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (START). START aims to produce comprehensive research assessing practices and solutions in regard to different transportation technologies in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. This field is highly concerned with researching environmentally conscious solutions and opportunities for transportation technology and outlines a clear concern for the current climate crisis.

This study points to a very important aspect of climate change rhetoric as media often fails to make the connections between different environmental impacts and the role they play in accelerating climate change. This study found very little media concern towards climate change in relation to the Northern Gateway Pipeline. No media can be entirely without biases, but to look at something such as the Northern Gateway Pipeline (that will completely destroy the earth it inhabits) without looking at the overarching climate consequences is to offer a completely skewed media perspective. The study argues that media frames the issues as risk versus benefit in respect to economy and environment, but there is no comparison as continuing these tremendously detrimental projects will destroy the earth and the economy with it.

Their method of analysis adapted the socio-political evaluation of energy deployment (SPEED) framework. the SPEED framework looks at the different, interconnected factors that play into the shaping of new energy technologies, for example, laws, policymakers, and perceptions of risks versus benefits. The study used the SPEED framework to divide coverage of the Northern Gateway Pipeline into seven categories: Economic, First Nations, Technological, Healthy & Safety, Socio-cultural, Political and Environmental. The study pulled data from six different newspapers: two national papers (Globe and Mail and National Post) and two papers from each of the provinces that were directly affected (Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, the Province and Vancouver Sun). They retrieved all of the articles that used the term “northern gateway” in the first 200 words from the years 2006-2014. The articles were then coded into different categories based on the statements of each. Their primary finding was that generally the media coverage was framed as economic benefit versus environmental risk. Furthermore, these risks were viewed on a much smaller scale concerned with individual threats of oil spills and runoff. The study found the risk of climate change was only mentioned in 4.5% of the articles making it the least frequently mentioned environmental risk.

While this research has some very worthwhile findings it stops shorts of asking why these framing and media biases exist. The article argues that media coverage often frames issues in a certain way to further political agendas or policy changes but does not analyze why that is. The study notes that five out of the six media sources analyzed were owed by the same media conglomerate, while the Globe and Mail were not. They highlight that despite the fact the Globe and Mail are generally regarded as a right-leaning and pro-business media platform, it had the highest concern for environmental risks. the study fails to acknowledge the key role ownership plays in shaping media perspectives. Economic prosperity is of far more concern to media conglomerates than environmental impact, so that influence will always bear more weight in privately-owned media outlets. While the Globe and Mail still offer some partisan bias, they better understand the weight of the environmental impact. Altogether, media is failing to make the connections between these individual environmental disasters and the increasing threat of climate change. This is due largely impart to the private ownership of media and economic interests being valued above environmental risks. The bottom line is that without an earth to build an economy on, this rational means nothing.

Bibliography

Dusyk, Nichole, Jonn Axsen, and Kia Dullemond. "Who cares about climate change? The mass media and socio-political acceptance of Canada’s oil sands and Northern Gateway Pipeline." Energy Research & Social Science 37 (2018): 12-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.07.005

“Our Research.” Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team, August 7, 2018. https://sustainabletransport.ca/portfolio/our-research/.