Day Two of Real Media's Anti Daily Mail Week (for more details see here) highlights how the media is being used by rich business tycoons to push their own pro-fracking agenda and to suppress climate change.
"It is a crime against humanity and future generations that corporate media denies or ignores the threat of climate change" states the Real Media collective "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."
Real Media adds that 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'.
Real Media asserts that there's a media blackout on the dangers of fracking and climate change, and points to the recent court case in Manchester where the judge heard of massive contamination at the IGas exploratory drilling site in Barton Moss (see previous Salford Star article click here). The story was ignored by virtually all of the mainstream media, and as part of Anti-Daily Mail Week, Real Media is calling on the media to cover this issue.
In America, Murdoch-owned Fox News gives 69% airtime to climate deniers, when the proportion of doubters within science community is a mere 3% meaning 97% of scientists agree that climate change is imminent and manmade. It's regarded that 80% of remaining fossil fuels must stay in the ground to avert warming of over 2C, which would be an environmental disaster.
"Real scientists the ones not paid for by big oil assert we need to take urgent climate action, or face a grim future" says Kam Sandhu, spokeswoman for Real Media "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."
Meanwhile, tying in with the Real Media focus on climate change, today has been designated Frackademics Day, by anti-fracking campaign Talk Fracking. A new report, Frackademics: A study of the relationships between academia, the fossil fuels industry and public agencies, has been launched revealing `questionable relationships amid those in academia and the fossil fuel industry' and exposing professors involved in promoting fossil fuel interests.
From the University of Salford, three academics have been named Lateef Akanji, G Chimagwu Enyi and Ghasem Nasr. This trio, along with four dozen other academics, signed an open letter to The Guardian in June 2014 supporting shale gas exploration. The Frackademics report states that "letter contains a lot of hype with very little factual substance to back up the claims made...
"In reality, what this letter represents is not a reasoned statement from fifty academics it is a public relations smokescreen" it adds "Through their participation, those involved have arguably risked their public credibility by putting their name to a set of questionable statements...
"The letter was drafted and the signatories organised by the North West Energy Task Force (NWETF)" it explains "They are a Lancashire based lobby group which is funded by Cuadrilla and Centrica with support from their PR agents, Westbourne Communications...NWETF claim that they organised and drafted the letter which explains why its content is centred around issues related to economic hype rather than geophysical science." (read this section of the report click here).
The University of Salford was one of over a dozen universities expected to be targeted by campaigners today, alongside the University of Manchester which has received grants of around £657,000 to carry out research into fracking.
The six part Frackademics report aims to destroy the hype coming out of academic institutions and publicise the case against fracking...
"Our Frackademics report shows the Government has been resting its case on carbon emissions targets, on reports that have been compiled with the wrong data" says Joseph Corre, founder of Talk Fracking and son of Vivianne Westwood "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" he explains.
To read the full Frackademics report click here
For more information on Talk Fracking click here
Anti-Daily Mail Week...still to come...
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
For more details see the Daily Wail Online click here
Real Media campaign click here
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
(3).jpeg)
.png)
(1).JPG)
