Global Warming Paper

The political position of a newspaper in the UK is fairly obvious, you can get it from the leader or the way they write their headlines.

Some are slightly more obscure or difficult to work out than others, especially for issues where the traditional party lines are slightly blurred.

Today’s big story was a fairly good example of newspapers not being able to decide what to do. Apparently climate change could reduce the worlds economy by up to 20% if something isn’t done now according to Tony Blair.

Tony has described the review into the cost of global warming as “overwhelming” evidence with “disastrous” consequences which is nice.

The Sun has nailed its colours to the mast with some pretty big nails, in fact I reckon they’ve done it with a few screws and nailed them in for extra effect.

Their homepage sported a photo of Tony Blair and the headline “I’m saving the world and you lot are paying (Families facing £1,300 eco hike)”. The Sun’s slighty more upmarket sister paper, The Times, suggested there was a ‘Global warming ‘disaster’.

It’s nice to know two seperate arms of the same company can express different opinions depending on who reads them and their readers opinions. I guess Global Warming is a bigger issue for the middle class Times readers than the working men and women who prefer the Sun (gross over simplification and stereotyping of newspaper readers noted and ignored).

The others were fairly straight out of the box fact or quote based headlines. The Express told of how the “PM warns of global warming disaster”.  The Guardian sported a direct quote as a full headline suggesting that we ‘Pay now to avoid disaster’.

The Independent went with “Climate report demands action, says Blair” which was pretty similar to the Telegraph’s slightly harder hitting “Blair: World must act now on climate” and the Mirror had an all caps “BLAIR: URGENT ACTION NEEDED OVER CLIMATE CHANGE”.

This got me thinking about a quote from the ever brilliant Yes, Prime Minister where Jim, Sir Humphrey and Bernard were talking about newspaper readership.

Jim: I know exactly who reads the papers.

The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by people who actually do run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about people who read the Sun.

Bernard: Sun readers don’t care who runs the country as long as she’s got big tits.

I’ve just started watching through my Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister DVDs for what must be the fifth time in the last couple of weeks - the best political comedy series ever made (although The Thick of It comes close).

On the subject of the environment. I consider myself to be a fairly eco-friendly guy. Not through any concerted effort of my own though, if it was down to having to actually get off my backside and do something I doubt I’d ever get round to. No it’s due to a series of accidents and life decisions.

I recently took one of the Carbon Neutral Surveys that work out how much it would cost you to become Carbon Neutral - mine came out at about £30 a year and that’s only because I live on a small island and have to fly 200 miles there and back twice a year to see my parents.

I don’t drive (mainly because I’ve always been too lazy to bother to learn), We rarely have many lights on at home because I prefer the dark and I turn my computer, TV and everything else off by the mains every night (mainly because my wife is worried the place will explode due to my dodgy wiring).

A few blog posts on climate change:

Tim Worstall - A Climate Scientist on the Stern Review
Open Democracy - “The Economics of Climate Change”
Greenpeace UK - It’s not too late according to UK Government
Guardian - Climate change starts at home

Share/Save