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To: The BBC
BBC News - Give More Time and Attention to News on Climate Change
BBC News should broadcast more on climate change. Even with major news events like Sir David Attenborough's COP24 speech there's a gaping blank where news stories such as Brexit would have people around a table discussing it. Recently there was news that the Greenland Ice caps are melting four times faster than previously thought, but the BBC just covered Brexit. Despite the BBC's stated mission to educate and inform there's rarely coverage of the national and international news and developments of climate change; instead, repetitive coverage of other stories continues with an attitude of not wanting to talk about it.
The BBC should have regular news regarding the positive and negative developments and realities of climate change, which would dispel ideas that the situation can still be challenged with any legitimacy by climate change deniers, and inform and educate on the interconnections and implications for people and their lives of climate change and species extinction. The BBC should leave it to the public to decide whether we are happy to ignore the most important news story of our time.
Why is this important?
The lack of coverage means the UK public aren't finding out anything about climate change unless they know a lot about it already. The fact that the BBC, a respected insitution, are not educating and informing on such an important issue means that 1. many people assume there's nothing to be concerned about; 2. the lack of information prevents people being informed enough to do anything about the situation we're facing; 3. we aren't being introduced to the terms, the aspects, the character of climate change, which is what makes a story interesting and easy to follow. Instead terms like "El Nino" are often novel and unexplained and require looking up due to the scarcity of prior coverage. Climate change is the real story of our time in history. Realising how crucial it is, together with familiarity with the issues, makes following the developments interesting as well as uniting us in the face of the problem we need to tackle. While the BBC continues to limit coverage a majority of the public will continue to be uninformed and unfamiliar with the issues and therefore unengaged with what is required to stop or limit the damage.
