Global warming hysteria fatigue is a threat to any institution whose power rests upon “keeping the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety” – a timeless observation by H.L. Mencken, as true today as it was a century ago.
“Only 37 percent of Americans said addressing climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Furthermore, climate change was ranked 17th out of 21 national issues included in a Pew survey,” warns MIT News. With almost a quarter of MIT’s faculty feeding from the climate change trough, any reduction could threaten the growth of an administrative staff grown fat on its 59% F&A overhead.
MIT’s Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowships are structured to teach local reporters how to coax benighted citizens in flyover states into caring about climate change. “This is the only climate journalism fellowship that focuses exclusively on local storytelling,” says Laur Hesse Fisher, program director at MIT ESI and founder of the fellowship.
Hot enough for ya? Climate change. Freezing your keister off? Climate change. Too wet? Climate change. Too dry? Climate change. Wildfires, insects, flu, dog bites, street crime, homelessness, inflation, migrant invasion, teenage mental illness, athlete’s foot? Climate change.
With proper MIT training any news story can be turned into a sermon on climate change.
Professor Katherine Hayhoe explains that “to get Americans to care about climate change it’s imperative to guide them to their gate.”
And as Mel Brooks reminds us, it’s good to be the gatekeeper.