Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Want You to Believe in Climate Change (review)

This Fox News article from back when Tucker Carlson was their poster child is all about how climate change isn’t real. Carlson and his interviewee claim that every aspect of climate change, such as an increasing amount of hurricanes and heat waves, is fabricated by liberal politicians, which is false. Climate change is real, and it hurts people, plants, and animals. Let’s take a deep dive into the misinformation this article spreads.

The article begins with an appeal to ethos in the title, “Physicist to Tucker Carlson: Climate change is ‘fiction of the media’”. The title of “physicist” certainly sounds smart, but this job has nothing to do with the weather. The physicist, Steven Koonin, goes on to claim “that government officials like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are unqualified to raise the issue to such an extreme” as to call it an “existential threat” (Koonin). Not only is Koonin no more qualified to speak about climate change than a politician because his job also has nothing to do with studying the climate, but it is strange and likely homophobic to specifically bring up Pete Buttigieg in reference to climate change; there are many politicians who are part of the battle against climate change, and some of them are even more hated by Carlson’s audience than Buttigieg, but Koonin begins his denouncement of liberal politicians by mentioning Buttigieg nonetheless. If he had begun by mentioning someone that Fox News viewers hated more, like Bernie Sanders, who he does mention later on, he would have captured the attention of the viewers even more. However, he chooses an option that may not necessarily be less strategic, but, if it is as strategic, it is only because of homophobia that this is so.

Koonin goes on to encourage “the scientific community” to speak out against the politicians who fight against climate change. This is another vague appeal to ethos that is not actually related to the climate, and it serves as the article’s call to action. Seeing as this call to action only applies to scientists, which is not Tucker Carlson’s core demographic, it is not actually intended to bring about change, but rather to increase feelings of anger and resentment in those who do not believe in climate change. In doing this, Fox News gets to keep its core audience angry without actually doing anything, which is the main goal of this article. Unfortunately, the article spreads misinformation in the process that prevents people from changing the world to a better place.

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