COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 13/05/2020
Mark Hertsgaard
“PICK ANY WORLD-SHAKING EVENT from 20th century history—none has produced a bigger decrease in [heat trapping] emissions” than this year’s coronavirus, wrote Laura Millan Lombrana and Haley Warren in a May 7 article for Bloomberg Green. Normally, plummeting emissions would be good climate news. But in this case, emissions fell because of a pandemic that has killed a reported 280,000 people (and counting) and forced economies around the world into lockdown, driving unemployment to heights not seen since the Great Depression. In the coming weeks and months, countries will debate how to restore some semblance of normal economic life. The question is whether they will do it without endangering the planet in the process. Journalists will be tracking what figures to be a titanic struggle pitting science against politics and champions of climate-smart economics against defenders of the status quo. And the outcome will be shaped in part by whether news outlets can give this story the prominence, clarity, and urgency it demands.