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Wolfgang Lucht

There seems to be a far-reaching consensus in the 🇩🇪 media that climate protection is a green ambition they lose on, you know, because ... (enter your favourite objection). There is little sense that the climate crisis is existential and concerns us all.

The absence of climate scientists from the talkshows speaks volumes. It is all treated as a matter of priorities, power, politics. The actual urgency is rarely a factor.

As a climate scientist I sometimes don't know what more to say.

@W_Lucht @breadandcircuses It‘s just part of a pattern of German media consistently being garbage in every way on most topics.

@W_Lucht I call this phenomenon the “green myth”. A myth invented -and believed- by right and conservative politicians and media that climate action is a thing of the greens.

This myth has somehow managed to establish itself in the minds of many Germans, making climate change as you say an abstract thing concerning others, while its totally the opposite: a personal thing, happening here and now to all of us and those we love.

@_noelamac_
Well yes, it's happening here and now - but we're still only at the beginning, it will get so much worse, unfortunately, and that'll happen faster than people think.

Sometimes I say the climate heating and its consequences are a thing everybody knows about but then, when it actually happens, people will be surprised ...

@W_Lucht it is not just German media. Most of mainstream Canadian media is like this as well. It is frustrating.

@W_Lucht

I go further, Wolfgang:

The almost absence of #climatecrisis events and research findings from /main news, i.e. Tagesschau and heute 19 Uhr/ as well as the /criminalization of climate protests/ speaks volumes about megalomania, ignorance, stupidity and rottenness of editor-in-chiefs and media bosses that are not far away from Fox news level of man-made climate crisis denial.

@proscience
I tend to agree - the main reservation I have is that "the media can't be trusted, aren't communicating the truth, the system doesn't care ..." is dangerously close to the way the far right argues to polarize. Of course there's a big difference, here the science is clear, so it's more than just an opinion. But one has to be careful and clean in order to not be one of the destructive cynics that undermine the functions of the democratic state - and still, this is not working ... 🤔

@W_Lucht

1/2

I share your concerns and have for that very reason refrained from making this comparison for a long time.

But you as a climate scientist know even better than me that there are so many climate-related news on a daily basis you could (and should) have a 30-60min "climate news" show and wouldn't even cover 50% of what's going on.

But most German editors-in-chiefs and media bosses do the exact opposite: They pretty much ignore the news, even when it screams into their faces.

@W_Lucht

2/2

Plus, they boost climate crisis minimizer propaganda.

That's more and more like Fox News.

If one wants to be informed about the real world, relying on "established" German media is as if relying on the misinformation companies Exxon, Shell, BP, Rosneft, Saudi Aramco etc.

Exceptions (e.g. taz, Klimareporter, riffreporter, Krautreporter) confirm the rules.

@proscience
I think they're trained in finding "discourse" interesting, and simply reporting on it. Their they consider everything just discourse. Where they are lazy to an increasingly dangerous extent is where they should also be analytical, where what we know comes in (including science funded to provide this public service) - then they would find how much is unconvincing to the core. How making a social democracy ecological, too, requires firm engagement and not just fluffy manoeuvring ...

@W_Lucht

Most people in the rich countries, which are the root cause of it all and especially the rich caste, don't care.

They realized that the climate catastrophe isn't coming to them anytime soon and thus they stopped giving a damn. Just like many have already stopped caring about the Ukraine war because the fear of the Russian army soon overrunning all of Europe has faded.

This is naturally a problem of media coverage as well. All private-owned media only cares about are clicks and attention. The climate catastrophe is advancing "too slowly" for human perception to generate constant interest among a critical amount of people.
Add to this all the nonsense fake information coming from Hate-media like TikTok, Xitter, Facebook, RT, Fox, and so on., which confuses people or makes them turn away because they can't tell what's right or wrong.

Another issue comes from the capitalist system being set up to keep the majority of people busy with slave-like labor, even in the rich countries. The number of people having the time to actively invest effort into staying in the loop is low, because you usually don't have the time, if you need to work 2-4 jobs to make ends meet for your family.

So yeah, the stage is pretty much set. And personally I don't see any signs giving me big hope that we'll be able to dodge this bullet. Question would only be: how bad is it going to be?

@W_Lucht and despite the media neglect, die Grünen are not done. Because people aren't that stupid

@W_Lucht Just watched „Don’t Look Up“ a second time, and I have to say, it becomes better and better as time goes by - unfortunately.

@W_Lucht

As Everyone knows, the survival of the planet is optional, while Corporate Profits are SACRED!!!!

@W_Lucht The crap reality is that it's too late to hope for that buy in, the media will be following this through disasters only.

@W_Lucht sossusvlei is still beautiful
.. even we don't want it e everywere

@W_Lucht
The opposition also uses the cancellation of the KTF as a basis for political advancements for their parties. Instead of involving themselves with finding a solution for the fallout: cancellation of climate-related projects and related social funding programs. I don't get it at all. If people vote for them in the next election, they will have to find solutions anyway?

(Context: KTF = Climate Fonds which was declared illegal last week by the highest German court. The fallout: removing 60 billion € from the German state budget that were spent and planned for climate-related investments and expenses)