Boston Globe Cimate Change Reporting Analysis

The Globe’s Mission and History

  • XR Mass admires the Globe’s commitment to the truth. This commitment is evidenced by the Globe’s mission statement: “The truth matters. At the end of the day it may be the only thing that matters. Finding it is our job, and our pledge to anyone who takes the time to read or watch or listen to what we’ve found out… [we believe] the truth is worth getting, often in defiance of powerful interests.”
  • In the Spotlight investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to the Globe for “its courageous, comprehensive coverage [that] pierced secrecy, stirred local, national and international reaction and produced changes” in the church. During this and other investigations, the Globe (and especially the Spotlight team) have truly lived up to their stated mission.
  • The Globe’s editor at the time, Martin Baron, said to the Globe staff regarding the Spotlight investigation: "There was just a real determination to tell the whole truth, not just a piece of it, not just a slice … You made history this past year. And you made the world a better and safer, and more humane place."
  • The Boston Globe has recently shown this courage in its reporting. In 2018, they started the “Journalists Are Not the Enemy” project to challenge President Trump’s hostility to the press. On April 1 2019, they joined the One Free Press Coalition to stand up for journalists targeted with violence all around the world.
  • We invite the Globe to consider how it might bring its trademark intrepid journalism to bear on climate change.

The Globe's Climate Coverage

A lack of emphasis on the severity of the climate emergency is endemic to much of the media ecosystem. We ask the Globe to set a leading example by considering these questions:

  • Do the Globe’s headlines adequately convey the risk of the climate crisis to human life?
    • For example, in his speech at the 2018 UN climate conference in Katowice, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said:
      “For many people, regions, even countries this is already a matter of life and death … Even as we witness devastating climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough, nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption.
      The Globe’s corresponding headlines were: “Climate talks kick off in Poland, amid criticism of US” (Dec 3 2018, A4) and “UN chief urges action on warming” (Dec 4 2018, A3) and “Global carbon emissions a record high in 2018” (Dec 6 2018, A6).
    • The Globe dedicates a prominent section of its website to “Marijuana,” as does Boston.com. Neither website features a section on the environment or climate change. Consider that editorial decisions like this underplay the daily significance of environmental and ecological breakdown.
  • When reporting on new climate policies, does the Globe sufficiently scrutinize their content and adequacy?
    • The main article reporting on the Paris climate accord states the “final deal did not achieve all that environmentalists, scientists, and some countries had hoped for” (Dec 13 2015, A1), with no further discussion that it is entirely inadequate for limiting warming to its purported target of 2°C (3.6°F). A short article describing this further is relegated to page 5 (Sept 30 2016, A5). Consider that this agreement contains no reference to ‘coal’, ‘oil’, ‘fossil fuel’ or ‘carbon dioxide’, nor to the words ‘zero’, ‘ban’, ‘prohibit’, or ‘stop’. (As noted in Spratt & Dunlop, 2018: What lies beneath: the understatement of existential risk. The original text of the Paris Agreement can be found here.)
    • An editorial on Mayor Marty Walsh’s “Boston Harbour Resilience” plan does not mention how this plan fails to include binding regulation or hard deadlines for its proposed measures.
  • What does the Globe’s balance of emphasis between climate denialism and the scientific consensus communicate to its readers?
    • Of the 3 articles since 2000 mentioning “feedback loop” in the context of accelerating climate damage, one is in a book review (Feb 8 2011, G11), one is in a column promoting climate science denial (Mar 15 2017, A11), and only one addresses unprecedented and accelerating ecological breakdown and animal population loss (Dec 12 2018, A4)
    • They have published columns promoting climate change denial that have been revealed to be misleading.
    • A recent example has “Key figure says carbon emissions benefit the planet” and “more CO2 is actually a benefit to the earth” in large text, only mentioning the scientific consensus in the main article text (Feb 21 2019, A2).
  • The Globe’s coverage omits important scientific research into runaway warming and the global warming tipping point.
    • A search of the Boston Globe online archive found that no articles contained some important concepts and terms from scientific climate research. We found no content with the terms “climate feedback loops,” “global warming tipping point,” “hothouse earth” or “global hothouse.”
    • Our search of the Globe’s articles did not locate any articles with the term, or content on, “hothouse earth,” which is the subject of important climate science, as well. Hothouse earth refers to earth’s climate when it has shifted into a cycle of greater and greater warming.
    • Runaway warming may represent the greatest threat to life on earth. Yet the Boston Globe has not addressed this possibility in any of its coverage. Our search of the Globe’s articles did not locate any substantive articles of this important climate science. “Runaway warming” appeared in one article in 2016 in a quote from an environmentalist, and “runaway climate change” appeared just three times since 2011.
    • Runaway warming will occur when the warming climate triggers additional sources of natural warming from the planet, in particular the thawing permafrost and release of methane into the atmosphere.
    • Regarding methane, our search of the Globe archive found just seven articles between 2011 and 2017 referring to methane releases due to warming but no use of the terms “methane hydrates” or “methane chimneys.”
    • Climate feedback loops also do not receive the substantive reporting they deserve and their role in runaway warming. These are established scientific concepts and documented by scientific research.
  • Is the Globe’s coverage of local environmental protests commensurate with public concern and participation?
  • Can the Globe measure up to what the truth demands, with intrepid and thorough reporting? We are encouraged by strong articles on the ecological emergency, some of which made the frontpage and which address: