"Has Environmental Journalism Failed?"

A recent Gallup public opinion Poll suggests Americans are less concerned about the environment than they have been in two decades. Does that mean environmental journalism has failed?

"As an environmental journalist, I start off each morning plowing through a half-dozen or so roundups of the day’s biggest environmental news. Invariably, it’s depressing and overwhelming; before I’ve even finished my first cup of shade-grown coffee, I’m barraged with stories of how climate change is ruining life as we know it and how zillions of animals are dying under our watch and how rapacious corporations and corrupt politicians are only making the situation worse.

All of this should make me fairly cynical about humankind’s penchant to protect the Earth. But I was nonetheless surprised that Gallup’s 2015 survey on the environment reveals Americans are less concerned about the environment now than at nearly any time in the past two decades. This optimism comes despite some seriously sobering news in the past year: The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached an unprecedented 400 parts per million, for example, and a study in Nature concluded that we’ve ushered in the planet’s sixth great extinction, with 41 percent of all amphibians, 26 percent of mammal species, and 13 percent of birds facing extermination.

Given that hundreds of journalists, myself included, have dedicated our working lives to getting people to care about environmental calamities, does this mean we’ve failed?"

Krista Langlois reports for Slate April 8, 2015.