The Nation

07/18/2025

Last Thursday, CNN ran a story that inadvertently underscored the fact that most journalism is still not getting across the full truth about climate change. Harry Enten, CNN’s polling analyst, displayed Gallup data showing that 40 percent of Americans are “greatly worried” about climate change. But this 40 percent is “the exact same percentage as [were worried] back in 2000,” he pointed out, “despite everything we see [today] on our television screens, our computer screens…the hurricanes, the tornados, the flooding.”

“Americans aren’t afraid of climate change,” Enten concluded. “Climate activists have not successfully made the case to the American people.”

Perhaps not, but neither have most journalists. The extreme weather events Enten cited have gotten extensive news coverage, but most of that coverage did not make the climate connection. As we noted last month, “In the summer of 2024, for example, when record high temperatures brutalized outdoor workers, withered crops, and worsened hurricanes, only 12 percent of US national TV news segments mentioned climate change, though its role in driving such extreme heat has long been scientifically indisputable.”