– Billionaires use of the media to suppress climate change and push fracking for their own financial gain, Real Media campaigners assert in second day of week against corporate ownership of media
– Talk Fracking publish report highlighting academics’ ties to fracking industry – delivered by a ‘Frackademics Professor’ covered in oil at 10am at Imperial College London, Main Entrance, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ
– Real Media call for press to cover fracking contamination story at Barton Moss [1]
– Group of polar bears will appear in a stunt to protest new runways in the UK and Mexico, calling aviation industry “plane stupid”: 8am at architect Foster + Partners’ office, 22 Hester Road, London SW11 4AN
Websites: dailywailonline.co.uk / realmedia.press
Twitter: @RealMediaGB
It is a crime against humanity and future generations that corporate media denies or ignores the threat of climate change, say the Real Media collective.
The campaigners point out how there are viable renewable energy alternatives, yet the billionaire owned press is pushing propaganda against this green pathway. The Daily Mail’s misleading coverage of wind power inefficiency has even prompted responses from the government. [2]
The message comes on the second day of the Real Media’s Anti-Daily Mail week, starting yesterday with distributing 20,000 copies of spoof Daily Mail and hundreds of posters with headlines billionaire-owned media fails to report.
When the International Panel on Climate Change released its last report in 2013, the Daily Mail reported it scarcely and with headlines reading “How Scientists Keep Changing Their Tune” and “Met Office Global Warming Figures ‘Are Fatally Flawed’”. [3] The trend is international: In the US, Murdoch-owned Fox News gives 69% airtime to climate deniers, when the proportion of doubters within scientists is a mere 3% [4] – meaning 97% of scientists agree that climate change is imminent and manmade. There is wide consensus that 80% of remaining fossil fuels must stay in the ground to avert warming of over 2C.
Kam Sandhu, spokeswoman for Real Media, said: “Real scientists – the ones not paid for by big oil – assert we need to take urgent climate action, or face a grim future. We also have real media reporting on the dangers of industries like fracking. The problem is the corporate control of both science and the press.”
Campaigners also point to the media blackout on the dangers of fracking and media moguls’ fossil fuel interests. Five billionaires own about an estimated 3/4s of the British press and the most prolific one, Rupert Murdoch, owns shares in fracking companies.
Real Media’s climate theme coincides with two related protests: Students in 10 Universities across the country will protest their universities’ ties to fracking, exposed in a report by campaign group Talk Fracking to be published today.
Joseph Corre, founder of Talk Frackingand son of Dame Vivianne Westwood said: “The dash for shale gas could end up being one of those gravely mistaken innovation choices, with disastrous medical and health consequences. Our ‘Frackademics’ report shows the government have been resting its case on carbon emissions targets, on reports that have been compiled with the wrong data. As a result, it’s a giant leap in the opposite direction to where we should be headed if we’re serious about tackling climate change. Although they have no democratic mandate to foist fracking onto the British people, or to sweep away our protections under civil law in order to allow fracking companies to drill under our homes, schools and environment without our consent, this is precisely what the government are doing with the help of a powerful oil and gas lobby and their PR machine that are controlling the media and pushing out misinformation.”
In another stunt, a group of polar bears will protest the multimillion-pound advertising campaign for Heathrow’s third runway, calling investment into aviation industry “plane stupid”. Also comes architect Norman Foster’s involvement in new runways at Heathrow and Mexico City under fire from the group.
More info:
1) Real Media’s Anti-Daily Mail week focuses on the following themes:
· Monday 16th: corporate influence undermining democracy
· Tuesday 17th: climate change
· Wednesday 18th: austerity increasing inequality to record levels
· Thursday 19th: privatisation of healthcare and other public services
· Friday 20th: the arms industry’s interests driving the war on terror
· Saturday 21st: human rights
2) Universities participating in the ‘Frackademics’ action are UCL, University of Aberdeen, University of Bristol, Cambridge University, Edge Hill University, University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, University of Leeds, University of Manchester and University of Salford
Call-out by Talk Fracking: https://www.facebook.com/events/344540322402741/
Further reading:
[1] https://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=2645
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-daily-mail-article-on-wind-turbines
