New environmental coverage in Irish Times

Jayzesake · 05-11-2015 10:28AM #1

Interesting to note the response from An Taisce's John Harnett to an article by Paddy Woodworth in the IT. Here's Woodworth's piece:

New environmental coverage in the Irish Times

The constant association of ‘environment’ with ‘catastrophe’ is unhelpful and disabling – nature can be a source of pleasure. Welcome to a different approach to stories about the natural world

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/new-environmental-coverage-in-the-irish-times-1.2411366

And an excerpt from Harnett's response:

Lest we be in any doubt, two decades of sugar-coating environmental issues through the mantra of “sustainable development” has not slowed the unrelenting accelerating pace of anthropogenic climate change and global species extinction. Evoking a greater citizen engagement with the wonders of nature will prove a fruitless task unless we can also simultaneously politically reorient ourselves toward a positive future, a truer form of progress, which takes full account of the uneconomic costs of growth.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/renewed-focus-on-the-environment-1.2417277

IMO Harnett is 100% right. Of course nature can and should be a source of pleasure, but does that mean we should just ignore the - yes, catastrophic - plight it's in?

By all means highlight the good news stories, the joys that can be had from immersion in (what's left of) the natural world, etc. But to pretend that everything is just fine and dandy, aside from a few minor problems that can be resolved by, for e.g., getting more people to go foraging for mushrooms, is to engage in a downright cover-up of the true state of things.

For me, Woodworth's writings are often confused and contradictory in tone. For example, from the article above:

If more people enjoyed a closer relationship with the natural world, and had a more direct grasp of nature’s extraordinary variety and resilience, our society would be in a better place to tackle the consequences of centuries of environmental abuse by our species.

So, while saying that our species has caused centuries of environmental abuse, by stating in the same sentence that nature has an extraordinarily resiliance, he is downplaying the irreversible damage that has been done, and is being done to the natural world, through mass extinction, for example.

That message suits perfectly the agenda of those who want 'business [to continue] as usual'.

Del.Monte · 05-11-2015 11:54AM

The Irish Times is only interested in circulation and advertising revenue so sugar coated environmental coverage is the order of the day.

Jayzesake · 05-11-2015 02:53PM

Del.Monte wrote: »

The Irish Times is only interested in circulation and advertising revenue so sugar coated environmental coverage is the order of the day.

Sorry to say I agree with that. I used to think highly of it as a newspaper, but not anymore. The Guardian is the only one I buy now.

magicbastarder · 05-11-2015 03:59PM

Jayzesake wrote: »

But to pretend that everything is just fine and dandy, aside from a few minor problems that can be resolved

are you saying that by intending to publish a greater number of positive stories about the environment, that they are pretending everything is just fine?
from the original article:

We cannot and must not evade the daunting challenges of climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. The road to December’s Paris COP21 conference, and beyond, will be among the stories you read here.

you've reached a hell of a conclusion about their intentions, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Jayzesake · 05-11-2015 10:42PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

are you saying that by intending to publish a greater number of positive stories about the environment, that they are pretending everything is just fine?

magicbastarder wrote: »

you've reached a hell of a conclusion about their intentions, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

The constant association of ‘environment’ with ‘catastrophe’ is unhelpful and disabling – nature can be a source of pleasure. Welcome to a different approach to stories about the natural world

This headline could not be clearer: reporting on the catastrophic state of the natural world turns people off, so the Irish Times will avoid examining these truths in any detail - and the massive societal changes that are required to actually change the situation around, and instead focus on 'feel good' stories that readers may relate better to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my perhaps naive understanding was that the principle role of a newspaper, or any other media outlet, is to report the facts, rather than push the slant they believe may be 'more helpful' or 'less disabling'.

And the facts are that the natural world is in a catastrophic state: the unambiguous evidence for that is all around us, for those who care enough to become informed. Most people are largely unaware of just how bad the situation is, and there are a variety of factors behind that, but one very major factor is (most of) the media's approach, which is to either dumb down, or completely ignore, what's going on.

Reading Woodworth's piece, all the signs are that the Irish Times will continue in that vein by assuring us that while there may be problems, nature is, for example, 'extraordinarily resilient', so we needn't worry too much about it. To some, it may seem like nit-picking to focus on his use of such language. But that exact type of language, coupled with berating the conservation movement for being 'too negative and too narrow', or for its highlighting the catastrophic state of nature due to human activities because that just turns people off, all smack of a trend in environmentalism currently generally referred to as 'ecomodernism'. The latter is not 'eco' at all, but is really about surrendering to the fact that pristine wild nature no longer really exists, so there's no point in trying to save what's left. (Which is, of course, exactly what those who are profitting from the destruction of the natural world want to hear, hence the publicity ecomodernism has been receiving in certain circles.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/11877170/Owen-Paterson-Economic-growth-is-the-key-to-saving-the-planet.html

Woodworth may be leaning in that direction, or he may be pandering to a less defined instruction from his employers at the IT, that that type of message is what their readers, advertisers, shareholders, board members, etc. want printed in their newspaper.

Or, alternatively, he may simply not be particularly clued-in regarding ecological questions. While reading his book 'Our Once and Future Planet' a couple of years back, that was very often my distinct impression.

magicbastarder · 05-11-2015 11:26PM

paddy woodworth wrote:

While never minimising the grave environmental challenges we face, I hope to highlight areas where advances are being made

all i'm seeing is a lot of straw-manning and supposition in your arguments; unless you know paddy woodworth's mind better than he does. so i'm going to bow out.

Jayzesake · 06-11-2015 01:44PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

all i'm seeing is a lot of straw-manning and supposition in your arguments

My arguments are based solely on the choice of words used and the ideas expressed in Woodworth's article, and to a lesser extent my memories of his book, which I personally found to have a rather weak grasp of ecology, as I mentioned above. Nothing more, nothing less.

magicbastarder wrote: »

so i'm going to bow out.

That's no bother.

OpenYourEyes · 06-11-2015 02:15PM

Obviously I'll reserve judgement until I've seen how it actually plays out, but I certainly get the impression that there will be significantly less mentions of environmental problems, or certainly that problems relevant to specific articles will be very much glossed over, with perhaps bigger issues like climate change referred to elsewhere in the paper(?).

On the surface I can see an argument for focusing on positivity, but as I said in another thread theres a difference between awareness and engagement. Making people aware of all the good news stories and the positive aspects of biodiversity is unlikely to increase engagement or change behaviours. I think rather than this 'positivity' angle, they could keep the tone of coverage as it was and simply dedicate space to promoting wildlife-related events that are coming up that week - things like BWI or IWT branch events, various talks by environmentalists, citizen-science surveys that are coming up or ongoing etc. So you'd have a go-to broadsheet page every week where you can read the good news and the bad news, and the readers of that will also be able to see and be reminded of where they can go to hear more or to actually do something. If I can be very idealistic, the Irish Times and their columnists could even organise events themselves such as inviting high profile environmentalists to give talks somewhere like Dublin, or organising public events at places like Phoenix Park, Bull Island, Galway Bay etc where a range of experts are on-hand to share knowledge and show people around.

Engagement is whats needed - reducing the amount of negativity in environmental articles is likely to change awareness levels but unlikely to change levels of engagement.

wagtail99 · 06-11-2015 02:47PM

Jayzesake wrote: »

Sorry to say I agree with that. I used to think highly of it as a newspaper, but not anymore. The Guardian is the only one I buy now.

I know it's off topic in the nature forum, but 10 years ago I would have agreed with you but The Guardian has really gone down hill, It's recent editorial opposition to both Scottish Independence and J.Corbyn for leader of the UK labour being a couple of annoyances. Just last week they published an editorial claiming that Halloween was an American import and had no history in Britain. This last one of course really annoyed northern English and Scots who celebrate Halloween similarly to the Irish. The Guardian is becoming more southern English, middle class and less left wing by the year. Rant over.

Jayzesake · 06-11-2015 04:05PM

wagtail99 wrote: »

I know it's off topic in the nature forum, but 10 years ago I would have agreed with you but The Guardian has really gone down hill, It's recent editorial opposition to both Scottish Independence and J.Corbyn for leader of the UK labour being a couple of annoyances. Just last week they published an editorial claiming that Halloween was an American import and had no history in Britain. This last one of course really annoyed northern English and Scots who celebrate Halloween similarly to the Irish. The Guardian is becoming more southern English, middle class and less left wing by the year. Rant over.

I think the Guardian does deserve a lot of credit for its 'Keep it in the Ground' campaign against fossil fuels though, which seems to be gaining a fair amount of momentum. The other newspapers barely even acknowledge that climate change is an issue.

Also, Monbiot's contributions alone (when they are published) are worth buying it for imo. Even when I disagree with him, I find I'm always provoked into thinking more deeply about the subject at hand.

Capercaillie · 06-11-2015 05:52PM

Jayzesake wrote: »

I think the Guardian does deserve a lot of credit for its 'Keep it in the Ground' campaign against fossil fuels though, which seems to be gaining a fair amount of momentum. The other newspapers barely even acknowledge that climate change is an issue.

Also, Monbiot's contributions alone (when they are published) are worth buying it for imo. Even when I disagree with him, I find I'm always provoked into thinking more deeply about the subject at hand.

I like Monbiot as well. He says it as he sees it and does not tow the party line. Not too worried about offending anybody.

New environmental coverage in Irish Times

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