Bad
Headlines Give Unbalanced Picture of Climate Change Policy
October 26, 2009
Economics
whizzes from the Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research
Service, and Energy Information Administration went in front of the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on October 14 to talk
about the impacts of climate legislation.
They laid some hard
numbers before the committee. Their numbers made clear that the onerous
cost estimates trotted out by opponents of climate legislation are
voodoo economics - scare tactics that inflame rather than inform.
Their numbers also made clear that addressing climate change would have
minuscule impacts on economic growth.
The
economy's size today is about $15 trillion. Without greenhouse gas
emissions cuts, the economy's size is projected to reach $25 trillion
by January 2030. With greenhouse gas emissions cuts, the economy's size
would reach $25 trillion a few months later.
No bread lines. No
hollowing out of the American economy. None of the nightmare scenarios
that climate legislation opponents have used to play on voters' fears
and derail a shift to low-carbon energy technologies.
Unfortunately,
none of those messages came through in the Washington Post's headline
over the story about the Senate committee hearing: "Cap-and-Trade Would
Slow Economy, CBO Chief Says."
A casual reader who didn't dig
into the story's details would get the impression that the opponents of
climate legislation are correct and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
would be a complete economic loser.
Misleading headlines have been an all-too-common problem in coverage of
the costs and benefits of climate legislation.
While
it is understandable for editors to want attention-grabbing headlines,
readers are ill served by headlines that don't accurately reflect the
story's full context.
The potential costs of an energy
transition should not be treated lightly, but neither should they be
exaggerated or taken out of context.
Covering the costs of
climate change should cover both sides of the ledger - the costs of
acting and the costs of doing nothing. Otherwise, the public gets an
incomplete, unbalanced picture of what we're up against.
Good stories about climate change strive for balance. So should the
headlines that describe those stories.
