CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS EDITED DOWN
7/4/2008 Guardian Front page lead (bought in Edinburgh) was edited down on the Guardian website. The Guardian Front page lead was headed:-
Climate target is guaranteed catastrophe.
The same Guardian website article was headed:-
Climate target is not radical enough - study
Read the article and see if you agree that the first heading was appropriate to what Hanson et al wrote.
Why was an appropriate summary heading watered down?
The phrase “not radical enough” has political overtones and suggests that the target is a preference which less ‘radical’ people would reject as being unreasonable.
In fact, the target is supposed to be a calculation of the greenhouse gas emissions that would not result in too extreme a change in climate.
We are invited to think of climate change as an option like the choices on a supermarket shelf instead of understanding it as a process with inexorable consequences and time frames, unless we prevent the more extreme outcomes by actions which involve organising comprehensive changes in lifestyles and expectations on a global scale beyond most people’s comprehension.
Who benefits from diluting the impact of Hanson et al’s study?
Who wants to prevent us from facing the reality and acting while there is time?