Even when corporate media have stepped back and questioned the emphasis on Pruitt's individual misbehavior, the analysis still manages to focus on what this means for Pruitt personally, rather than for human health and ecological well-being. The New York Times' Coral Davenport (New York Times, 4/3/18) wrote that Pruitt's ethical transgressions obscured his environmental policy agenda -- but framed this as a personal and political misfortune for Pruitt, not a threat to the environment. "A plan to weaken President Barack Obama's stringent rules on planet-warming tailpipe emissions," she reported, "should have been Scott Pruitt's finest moment," leaving him "basking in glory" -- almost as if we should be rooting for Pruitt to successfully increase global temperatures.
Stuart Shapiro in USA Today (4/28/18) took a contrary line, complaining that "EPA Scandals Overshadow Scott Pruitt Failure to Undo Obama Environmental Regulations." Shapiro, a professor of public policy at Rutgers, argued that Pruitt's "deregulatory efforts to date have failed, and his plans for future repeals of regulations are likely to meet the same fate." His point that "repealing a regulation is hard" is worth bearing in mind, but the focus is on whether Pruitt's "accomplishments" are genuine and whether he deserves the "praise" he has gotten from Trump -- not on how the success or failure of Pruitt's efforts will impact the environment.
Major news outlets need to pay attention to political scandals, whether Pruitt's blatant corruption or Trump's wild outburst of the day, but their singular focus on such stories obscures the devastation that environmental degradation will impose in the coming years, and the need for climate action as early as yesterday. It is no exaggeration to say that climate change could be the most challenging crisis in the history of humanity. Viewers and readers need to be inundated with information on how the Trump administration is setting climate action back, and the current and future negative effects of climate change, including sea level rise, temperature rise, destruction of plant and animal life, public health concerns like famines and diseases, increased instances of drought, wildfire, storms and flooding and effects on war, migration and refugee crises, among many, many others.
While many of the varied scandals plaguing poor Scott Pruitt are intertwined with his comfy relationship with fossil fuel special interests, that should only make it easier for media outlets to connect the profit-seeking motives of extractive industries with the complicity of the federal government in willful ignorance on climate change.
Yet it might be near the end of the line for Pruitt; White House aides have decried his scandals as embarrassing and called for his firing. Pruitt's successor will no doubt likewise be an ally of the fossil fuel industry, and might not be as nakedly corrupt. Bringing more sunlight onto climate issues now is necessary for setting a precedent for environmentally focused coverage in the future.
*Justin Anderson is a writer based in New York City.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
