In a rare outbreak of journalistic sanity, analysis of nearly 2,500 UK media articles about June’s warm weather found that almost three-quarters made no attempt to link it to the supposed “climate crisis.” Barbecues were had, sunbathers rejoiced and some went for a swim. The usual suspects at the climate cult are furious that most outlets refused to turn it into yet another end-of-the-world segment.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (a fine name for a pressure group that exists to keep the grants flowing) combed through coverage in the big nationals from 22–28 June. Their shocking discovery: roughly 72% of stories about “extreme heat” or “heatwave” skipped any reference to global warming, climate change, or the approved doomsday vocabulary. Even fewer, under one in twenty, bothered mentioning “net zero,” that magical policy that somehow solves everything by making electricity expensive and industry flee the country.

Imperial College London duly produced its annual modelling exercise claiming around 2,700 people died from overheating in May and June, with about 1,100 of those deaths supposedly caused by the extra heat from human emissions. These are the same sorts of models that have spent decades forecasting imminent catastrophe while the actual body count from cold remains far higher every year, thats before we get into the fiddling of the numbers. 

Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, told anyone who would listen that the public desperately needs the media to explain the crisis better during warm weather. Translation: the people keep failing to panic on schedule, so we need louder megaphones and fewer awkward questions about why the promised apocalypse keeps being postponed.

The ECIU’s Gareth Redmond-King insisted the link between recent heat and climate change is “indisputable” and that net zero is the medicine. If recent heatwaves are the symptom, he said, climate change is the illness. Many readers have started to suspect the illness narrative is mostly a convenient way to sell expensive medicine that doesn’t work very well and hurts the poor hardest.

When the numbers were broken down by outlet, the usual pattern emerged. The Guardian and Financial Times led the field in dutifully inserting climate crisis references into heat stories. The Independent was prolific but still only managed it in about 39% of pieces. The Mail managed around a fifth. The Express managed about one in eight.

At the bottom, or, depending on your perspective, the top, sat the Sun with just 6% of its heatwave stories mentioning the crisis, and the Mirror at 9%. These outlets apparently decided readers might prefer actual weather reporting, beach photos, and practical advice over another lecture about how your car and your steak are destroying the planet. When liveblogs and minor updates were stripped out, the proportions barely changed. The public, it seems, is not demanding wall-to-wall climate guilt with their heatwave coverage.