How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet? The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change

Abstract

Suppose our leading scientists discovered that a meteor, hurtling toward the earth, was set to strike later this century; the governments of the world had less than ten years to divert or destroy it. How would news organizations cover this story? Even in an era of financial distress, they would throw teams of reporters at it and give them the resources needed to follow it in extraordinary depth and detail. After all, the race to stop the meteor would be the story of the century.

When it comes to global climate change, it is sometimes said that we are the meteor. The analogy is imperfect, of course. Climate change is slow and gradual, at least for now, unfolding on a time scale that confounds the capacities of our politics, our economics, and our journalism. Abrupt, rapid disruptions are likely, but no one can say when they may come. De-spite the uncertainties, climate scientists have no doubt that the impact is already being felt and little doubt that future con-sequences will be severe to catastrophic.2 It is too late to “prevent” global warming, but it may yet be possible to avoid cataclysm. Doing so, environmental experts overwhelmingly agree, requires decarbonizing our economy—not with a meteor-smashing space shot but with a broad, urgent World War II–style mobilization. Intense opposition to that sort of action remains, in part due to fears of rising energy costs in a carbon-constrained world. Well-designed policies are the key to reducing emissions while avoiding price spikes, and public support is the key to passing those policies into law. A vigorous press ought to be central to both climate policy and climate politics, but this is not a time of media vigor. The American press has been hit by a meteor of its own, a secular revenue decline that is driving huge reductions in newsroom staff and making disciplined climate coverage less likely just as it becomes most crucial. So it is well worth asking: How is the press doing on the climate solutions story?

This paper attempts to answer that question by examining coverage of the eco-nomic debate over Senate Bill 2191, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008. The economics of climate pol-icy—not the science of climate change—is at the heart of our story because the most important step toward national mobilization is putting a price on carbon emissions, either through a carbon tax or, in Lieberman-Warner’s case, a mandatory declining cap. This is the great political test, and the great story, of our time. But news organizations have not been treating it that way.