Fox News is notorious for its near-unanimous dismissal of climate change. A survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that a full 93% of its coverage actively casts doubt on global warming (contrast that with studies that find that 97% of working climatologists believe humans are causing it, and you see the problem).So the segment above, flagged by the liberal watchdog Media Matters, is eyebrow-raising, to say the least. After a report on the fallout from extreme storms—toppled telephone poles, power disruptions, etc—they segue to, get this: a climate change study published by the US Department of Energy. That report predicts that climate change will increase the frequency by which these stability-threatening accidents occur.This is remarkable primarily because of this framing—this is how a climate activist would try to tell a story about climate change, leading with the gut-punching viscera of havoc wrought by storms and subtly transitioning to a sober report about how global warming will bring more and more of the same.Fox News, after all, routinely allows ground-breaking climate change studies and milestones to slide by without comment. As of last month, for the first time in human history, carbon dioxide now comprises 400 parts per million in our atmosphere. Before the industrial revolution, it was 280 ppm. Kind of a big deal. What did Fox have to say? Nada. And the outlet routinely hosts "experts" to debunk seminal climate studies like the oft-derided IPCC reports that synthesize global research on the topic.So what gives? Why is Fox giving this solid, albeit heavily caveated ("there are those that are skeptical of climate change and feel that a lot of the data out there has been sort of bloated a little bit,"), report connecting climate change to impending disaster, something that is contrary to everything it purports to believe in? Two theories:A) Notice the prevalence of the words 'US Department of Energy,' and 'DOE', that describe a bureau that is loathed by conservatives. Maybe they're just trolling their base, here, inviting the eye-rolls of old white conservatives who'll surely bristle at the findings of a climate report from Big Government.To me, that almost seems more plausible than:B) The news staff, divorced from the lunatic ranting of its far-right "opinion" hosts that are the network's bread-and-butter, just went and filed a scientifically-correct, weirdly factual report. As we know, Fox News employs some rather rigid guidelines that its content generators must follow—that come down from Roger Ailes himself—and one of those is to always inject incertitude into a story on climate change.Perhaps the hosts felt the deployment of that above-mentioned caveat was enough to satisfy the higher-ups. Perhaps it just snuck by because somewhere, in some dank, under-appreciated corner of Fox News, there's a journalist or two who feels an urge to do some good science journalism. Who knows.Either way, this segment is a curious enough artifact to inspire this longtime climate watcher to write multiple paragraphs contemplating its meaning, so there's something to be said about the sheer power of Fox getting something right about global warming at all.
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