Compare and contrast today’s NYTimes coverage with, e.g., 2000’s At Yellowstone, an Ecosystem Teetering on a Tree (link) (by Robbins)

Re Charlie Petit’s comment above, his Jan 2007 NYT piece is here – In the Rockies, Pines Die and Bears Feel It (link)

I first noticed NYT climate coverage going to hell two months later, with William J. Broad’s From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype (link).

When the carbon tax was first enacted this summer, it was extremely unpopular. Opposition was discovered in surprising places: a majority of Green Party supporters, according to one poll, indicated they were opposed. The opposition party, a party to the left of the Democratic party in the US, exploited the resistance to higher taxes of any kind by branding the carbon tax as a “gas tax” and shouting from any rooftop they could find that they would end it. They soared in the polls to the point there is a possibility they will win the next election, to be held next spring.

It was astonishing for me to witness the fact that it is good politics to oppose action on climate change even in a province where working in the forest is still a major industry and 50,000 square miles of the forest is dead due to climate change.

The reason the NY Times and others continue to “blow” the climate change stories:

* the wealthiest 8% of humanity are responsible for 50% of GHG.

These are the same people who staff, read and advertise in NY Times and other main stream media. Any solution to climate change is going to require all of us in the global elite to cut way back on our “luxury carbon”. As Upton Sinclair correctly quipped:

* It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

I believe it was Al Gore who said his experience was:

* taxi drivers and everyday workers understand the climate crisis and what needs to be done far better than the most educated folks, media and politicians.

The dirty secret is that the people who are most responsible…the people who most need to cut their emissions…are the last to “understand” and “act”. It is true at the national level and more importantly at the personal level.

It is even true of the environmental community which is filled with “bright green deniers”. These are folks who know better but refuse to act in their personal lives or in their professional lives in a way they know everyone must.

One of the most glaring example of this is the silence on data such as that compiled by Professor Pacala of Princeton. He shows the 8% to 50% connection between wealth and ghg. The only place i’ve seen this covered is here by Joe. Kudos! Oddly, Pacala’s other work (the 13 stabilization wedges) was widely covered in all media. Hmmm.

An essential step in solving climate chaos is to make it socially unacceptable within the global elite (i.e. most of us) to continue burning “luxury carbon”.

It’s not a morality issue…it is a mathematical fact. A tiny percentage of the population emits the vast majority of carbon. These same people hold the levers of power in media, government and biz. Most of us live at least partly in that social-economic sphere and need to insist on change from within by highlighting the facts around choice being made today between “luxury carbon” vs future civilization.

Larry Coleman had said
“… Isn’t four years long enough to mention the link to GW without seeming overly repetitive? ”

and I’d agreed
“The more I chew on this, the more I think that “The Times is pretty
good on the warming stuff, but also careful not to repeat themselves” is the key.”

And it’s still chewing on me, or I’m still chewing on it, or something.

So yesterday morning I went back and pestered the NYT’s poor freelancer, asking:
—-
“How was this message ["The Times is... careful not to repeat themselves"] conveyed to you? and did it come from the top ( the Times’s Science editor or above), or by the guy who directly edits the Science section of the Times _under_ Laura Chang, or?

Thanks if you could help shed light on this – I wouldn’t be asking, if it didn’t matter.”
—-
I sent this email to him yesterday morning; no reply yet, but if I get one, I’ll report it here.

“Foresters say the historic outbreak has several causes. Because fires have been suppressed for so long, all forests are roughly the same age, and the trees are big enough to be susceptible to beetles. A decade of drought has weakened the trees. And hard winters have softened, which allows the beetles to flourish and expand their range.”

Which just goes to show that they *know* the real cause, but are soft-pedaling it–or am I being paranoid? Maybe they figure everyone thinks like those of use who read this blog–WE know why the “hard winters are softening”!

One thing I’ve noticed in the last year or so (though one swallow does not a summer make, and it’s not based on widespread observation) is an increase in dwarf mistletoe infestations and in blister rust(??), on young Ponderosa Pines in formerly-good habitat.
(this being the Sierra foothills, in western Nevada County Calif.)

It turns out it’s beetles all the way down.

It’s great to see stories like this, which as Anna will know are getting more common in Northern California local media, but note that there’s no mention of the pine beetles.

I also spotted this story focusing on a specific pine species.

Nature understands synergy even if the media don’t.

I am still waiting for someone of influence to notice, never mind explain, the fast accelerating decline of Eastern forests. I live in New Jersey and it is apparent to me that close observation of tree conditions leads to the terrifying conclusion that virtually every species, coniferous and deciduous, is dying, and dying fast. Evergreens are yellowing, and losing needles, and covered with cones in a desperate effort to reproduce. Maples, hickory, sycamore, catalpa and locust all had leaves that were singed, brown and dropping by August, and limbs and bark are falling off.

Sure, some is attributable to pests and disease, but because the effects are so broad, I believe it is due to warmth and dryness, particularly the lack of snow, which should provide a slow, permeating source of water. Instead we get short heavy bursts of precipitation.

The consequences of the death of trees in NJ, and no doubt, PA, NY, CT and RI at the least, are disastrous. Birds and other wildlife will lose their habitat and become extinct. All the plants adapted to the understory will perish. Wildfires will occur. There will be vast power outages due to falling trees.

I think the reaction to the coming (and soon!) meltdown of our ecosystem, when it finally becomes apparent, will rival if not eclipse the handwringing that accompanies the financial meltdown.

I can only hope the Obama administration will respond with more effectiveness.

Thank you for this article and if anyone has anything to say about the issue, I would love to hear from you at witsendnj@yahoo.com. My children think I’m batshit crazy.

Bob, I would *love* to be able to see an NYTimes reader survey on this. I agree, without this info we’re just spouting faith-based talking points.

I want this info.

Perhaps the upcoming citizen-journalist venture of the Huffington Post could take something like this on as a project…?