The media on Friday celebrated Earth Day with more lecturing about the need for expensive, left-wing solutions to climate change. Indeed, NBC pushed it all week. But nothing compares to the callous, horrific way the networks used the pandemic --- the death of millions --- to cheer the “environmental upside” of COVID.
All through 2020 and into 2021, reporters celebrated how less people meant less global warming (see our study here), offering a deeply tone deaf take on the carnage. On the April 22, 2020 episode of Today, Al Roker celebrated the environmental upside as the economy ground to a halt: “Less foot traffic, less waste, less energy consumption, allowing certain animals to thrive and impacting the Earth's atmosphere as well.”
On March 19, 2020, CBS This Morning journalist Vladimir Duthiers hoped for a “little bit of silver lining” to the pandemic.” Talking about an increase in water clarity in Italy, he added, “This is Venice.... You can never see the waters because they're so murky from all the boats. This time, now you can see the crystal-clear waters of the Venice canals.”
Here’s the video montage NewsBusters Media Editor Bill D’Agostino created of the cringe-inducing comments:
You see, in 2020 and 2021, it became clear that these journalists see humans as the problem. On the April 1, 2021 Today, Kerry Sanders lectured viewers, some who may have lost loved ones to COVID: ““When the nation and world shut down, Planet Earth got a rare break...”
To all those impacted by this killer virus, do you feel comforted that the Earth “got a rare break”? Sanders featured University of Miami professor Ben Kirtman who offered this alarming take on the coronavirus: “It's a gift to the science, but it's also a gift to us. To society. To the human race. It demonstrates we can do this.”
To read the full study I collaborated on with Bill D'Agostino, go here.
For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
