Is climate alarmism fading?
Encouraging news from the Guardian today, based on a report from MediaMatters. Despite all the hype around the COP21 Paris climate conference in December, the airtime devoted to climate news stories by the US TV networks actually fell in 2015 compared with 2014. The only channel that substantially increased its coverage was Fox, which takes a mainly sceptical viewpoint. Apparently the “findings are stunning”.
Another mouthpiece of climate propaganda, Climate Home, also seems worried, saying that Climate change has dropped off the political radar, as global warming is “knocked off the front pages” by other issues. They also describe a “mini-exodus of key figures” including Figueres and Fabius. Are some of the rats deserting the sinking ship? In another of their articles they lament that “The EU is acting like last December’s Paris climate agreement never happened” by making no changes to greenhouse gas emission reduction targets post-Paris. Meanwhile in Canada, plans for emissions cuts are delayed, “as implementing tougher carbon cuts proves troublesome”.
There are also signs of pennies dropping with some parts of the Green Blob normally associated with relentless promotion of climate hysteria:
- As Geoff discusses here, Suzanne Goldenberg has written about a low-carbon dream turning into a ghost town.
- John Vidal says Climate change politics is blinding us to the devastating effects of dirty air.
- The Conversation has an article on the folly of “sustainable” wood chips from US forests.
Then there’s the news that Yale’s Climate and Energy Institute is closing.
Any other recent examples? And is all this “A sure sign of warmism in decline”, or is that just wishful thinking?
Updates:
I forgot to mention a recent similar post at WUWT, The “long whimper” of failing climate alarmism.
Jo Nova picks up on this: “It’s panic stations over at Believer Central.”
The Daily Caller says Progressives Admit Global Warming Alarmism Is Fading
Climate Scepticism 
Your final link to the American Thinker article about Yale makes the interesting point that:
“… elite institutions, which always have their antennae attuned to the ebb and flow of the concerns of the world’s power elite, are acting out the consequences of decline. If you are a university president responsible for raising mega-donations by convincing the holders of wealth that they can achieve prestige and maybe a little immortality by funding your Good Works, then you have to be aware of their changing concerns.”
The Guardian is hardly an élite institution in the same sense; but it undoubtedly has its ear to the ground. Has advertising for jobs at the Environment Agency plummeted? Are friends at the Carbon Zombies For European Grants blog sending out feelers for a place on the Graun team?
If this is the case, expect politicians to be the last to know what’s going on.
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In the US, the tempered silence is because it is an election year. The Dems don’t want to make it a spotlight issue because they would be penalized at the polls, so the MSM, which is in the Dem’s pocket will keep it on the low profile burner.
However, it is only wishful thinking IMO. If the Dems should win the election, watch for Climate Change subsequently to explode onto the front pages. For example, a few tidbits from last night’s Dem debate which was watched only be the Dem’s most faithful:
http://junkscience.com/2016/03/hillary-bernie-both-oppose-fracking/
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Its not just a reduction in MSM warmunist propaganda. There is starting to be an increase in skeptical reporting. Perhaps a few too many failed predictions, a few too many cold snowy winters, in UK a few too many electricity price increases, in the US a few too many congressional investigations of warmunist shenanigans. It feels like the CAGW political tide is turning.
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Well over here in the UK a greater threat than eventual death from CAGW has arisen. Immediate death from leaving the EU. It’s worse than we imagined.
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Another sign of sanity breaking out at the Graun, at least on the business pages:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2016/mar/07/finally-someone-at-edf-sees-the-18bn-farce-that-is-hinkley-point
– an article that analyses the EDF/Hinckley Point disaster without once mentioning renewables. It ends: “If the future is non-nuclear, then get on with the job of making hard choices about the best infrastructure.”
“The best” note, not the greenest.
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