{"id":317786,"date":"2026-06-29T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=317786"},"modified":"2026-06-28T21:08:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T20:08:45","slug":"covering-the-impact-of-climate-change-without-mentioning-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/06\/covering-the-impact-of-climate-change-without-mentioning-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Covering the Impact of Climate Change\u2014without Mentioning Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

26 Jun 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0Severe weather has gripped the globe this week, with record-shattering, deadly heat in Western Europe. In the US, heat, wind and drought conditions fueled wildfires in the Southwest, while heavy thunderstorms, wind and floods caused destruction in eastern and central states.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists attribute<\/a> these extremes to fossil fuel\u2013driven climate change. Europe\u2019s heatwave would have been \u201cvirtually impossible to occur at this time of year\u201d 50 years ago, scientists from the World Weather Attribution group reported. The project\u2019s Theodore Keeping of Imperial College London told reporters (EuroNews<\/b>, 6\/26\/26<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The science of how climate change is worsening heatwaves is settled\u2026. Continued fossil-fuel emissions are directly responsible for the disruption people are experiencing this week in their homes, schools and workplaces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With extreme weather events worsening each year, and the world on track to surpass by 2030 the Paris Agreement\u2019s attempt to limit global heating to 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels, connecting these disruptive and deadly events to climate change is a key part of the story.<\/p>\n

Yet on the evening of Tuesday, June 23, despite leading their shows with severe weather headlines, nightly news shows on NBC<\/b>, ABC<\/b> and CBS<\/b> failed to mention climate even in passing.<\/p>\n

Cropping out climate<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"NBC<\/p>\n

NBC Nightly News<\/strong> (6\/23\/26<\/a>) had a tight shot of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Substitute anchor Hallie Jackson began the NBC Nightly News<\/b> (6\/23\/26<\/a>) by describing apocalyptic scenes around the globe:<\/p>\n

Tonight, the dangerous triple weather threat with fires, floods and deadly heat affecting millions. The flash flood emergency here at home: Fast-moving waters trapping drivers and washing out roads. Wildfires exploding out West. Plus, overseas, a record-shattering heatwave in Europe leaving dozens dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The broadcast covered heavy rains in Oklahoma, wildfires in Utah and Nevada, and heat and fire in Miami disrupting World Cup events. In France, it was so hot, Paris shut down the Eiffel Tower Tuesday, and Wednesday was expected to reach a 102\u00b0F record. More than 40 people were believed to have drowned in France\u2019s rivers and beaches while trying to escape the heatwave that began last week.<\/p>\n

\"UN<\/p>\n

\u2026when a wider shot would have revealed that he was speaking at London Climate Action Week<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In London, NBC<\/b>\u2019s Danielle Hamamdjian reported record highs in the city on Tuesday, with even higher temperatures anticipated to come.<\/p>\n

The broadcast then cut to a clip of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saying, \u201cAnd today this city\u2014and far beyond\u2014are experiencing the hottest day of the year\u2014with higher temperatures to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event that he was speaking at\u2014London Climate Action Week<\/a>\u2014was not identified. In fact, a banner with the London Climate Action Week logo that was behind Guterres was cropped out of the shot. The soundbite NBC <\/b>featured was excised from Guterres\u2019 longer remarks about the severity of climate change and the critical necessity of quickly and justly transitioning from fossil fuels:<\/p>\n

We have just lived through the 11 hottest years ever recorded. And today this city\u2014and far beyond\u2014are experiencing the hottest day of the year\u2014with higher temperatures to come. London isn\u2019t just calling\u2014it\u2019s cooking. Around the world, climate disasters are becoming more frequent, more destructive and more costly. And the World Meteorological Organization has warned we ain\u2019t seen nothing yet. El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> is not just knocking on the door. It risks blowing the house down. Turning up the heat. Disrupting food and water systems. And hitting the vulnerable the hardest. Ten years ago, world leaders agreed in Paris to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Now scientists say average annual temperatures will exceed that threshold in the coming years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later in the speech, Guterres demanded that AI companies publicly disclose their energy usage and commit to powering data centers with renewables by 2030.<\/p>\n

From a speech entirely about climate change and its tangible impacts, NBC Nightly News<\/b> managed to cherrypick a soundbite of Guterres essentially saying nothing more than \u201cit\u2019s hot.\u201d While the segment linked together these extreme weather events in Europe and the US as a global phenomenon, climate change didn\u2019t even get a passing mention.<\/p>\n

Records broken by unknown force<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"ABC:<\/p>\n

ABC World News Tonight<\/strong> (6\/23\/26<\/a>) reported on weather like there was no such thing as climate.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

ABC World News Tonight <\/b>(6\/23\/26<\/a>) with David Muir followed suit. Raising the alarm about tornadoes and flood watches in the east, severe storm threats in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming, extreme heat in the southwest and heatwaves in France, England, Italy and Spain, the broadcast didn\u2019t mention the word \u201cclimate\u201d once.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve lived here for 20 years and I\u2019ve never seen anything like this,\u201d a Fairfax County, Virginia, man said of the winds and storms that sent trees into cars and homes in the area.<\/p>\n

CBS Evening News <\/b>(6\/23\/26<\/a>) led with fires, droughts, floods and storms across the US, spotlighting Utah, where one wildfire was the size of San Francisco.\u00a0\u201cThe outbreak follows the state\u2019s warmest winter on record and one of the driest, with just a fifth of normal snowpack,\u201d said host Tony Dokoupil.<\/p>\n

In the next segment, correspondent Leigh Kiniry reported from London about record temperatures across Europe. Uniquely among the corporate networks\u2019 evening newscasts, this report alluded vaguely to climate change, noting that \u201cthe continent is warming faster than any other.\u201d But viewers were given no clue as to how or why: Direct mentions of climate change were nonexistent throughout the entire broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not one government is making progress\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Image<\/p>\n

PBS NewsHour<\/strong> (6\/23\/26<\/a>): \u201cBut with the changing climate, what hope is there for family farmers?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The lone exception to the erasure of climate change on the nightly news broadcasts was PBS NewsHour <\/b>(6\/23\/26<\/a>). While the show didn\u2019t lead headlines with extreme weather, its segment about the European heatwave included a soundbite from a Paris resident expressing dissatisfaction with how governments have ignored climate change.\u00a0\u201cParis when temperatures go high is just hell on earth,\u201d she said:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s catastrophic. I\u2019m worried for the coming years. We have known about climate change for a while, and not one government is making progress on this issue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later in the broadcast, PBS <\/b>dedicated a segment to droughts in the Southern US affecting farmers in Georgia. The report was part of an ongoing PBS<\/b> series called Tipping Point<\/a>, which focuses on the impacts of climate change and communities\u2019 efforts to adapt.<\/p>\n

Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists explained:<\/p>\n

Climate change is making these more frequent, both the short-duration kinds of droughts that we\u2019re seeing in some places, but also the longer megadroughts like the Southwest is experiencing. The unpredictability of it, the extremes, both the droughts and then the whiplash with extreme rainfall events, that makes it very difficult to plan for these kinds of conditions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report went on to describe precision irrigation systems as a possible mitigation\u2014though noting that their cost is often prohibitive. The segment points to \u201cpolicy steps worth considering,\u201d like helping farmers obtain these technologies through grants and low-cost loans.<\/p>\n

PBS <\/b>deserves credit as the only nightly broadcast that mentioned climate change at all. But while it addressed the issue of adaptation, it avoided the more fundamental question of causation; the burning of fossil fuels, and its connection to the segment\u2019s weather horror stories, wasn\u2019t mentioned at all.<\/p>\n

FAIR (7\/18\/23<\/a>) has previously documented that even when TV news connects extreme weather events to climate change, it seldom connects climate change to fossil fuels\u2014but the industry seems to have taken a step backward.<\/p>\n

The lack of climate coverage in legacy media follows a trend media analysts have been tracking since President Donald Trump\u2019s second term began. A Media Matters study (3\/4\/26<\/a>) found that ABC<\/b>, CBS<\/b> and NBC <\/b>aired 35% less climate coverage in 2025 than in 2024. A FAIR study (4\/14\/26<\/a>) found that trend mirrored in online news. But as coverage decreases, climate change\u2019s effects only increase in frequency and severity.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Jun 2026 – Severe weather has gripped the globe this week, with record-shattering, deadly heat in Western Europe. Yet on 23 Jun, despite leading their shows with severe weather headlines, news shows on NBC, ABC and CBS failed to mention climate even in passing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":317787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[686,2314,3882,1138,1748,3515,993,1855,234,2462,2571,2876],"class_list":["post-317786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-climate-change","tag-corporate-media","tag-extreme-climate-events","tag-fake-news","tag-fake-report","tag-fake-science","tag-global-warming","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-media","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317789,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317786\/revisions\/317789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}