(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Passive Aggression: Regulations Don't Find Enemies And Climate Didn't Politicize Itself [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-08-09 Ever since Radley Balko's 2014 column on " the curious grammar of police shootings ," the phrase "officer-involved shooting" has become the most obvious example of why journalists are taught to avoid passive voice, particularly the "past exonerative" tense that excuses misdeeds without acknowledging responsibility. McSweeney's even did a satirical guide on " how to use the past exonerative tense to uphold white supremacy ." By contrast, active voice ensures that the actors responsible are properly identified and described. We see examples of passive voice far too often in climate media, particularly in headlines. For example, last Friday a Guardian story explained " how electric cars became a battleground in the culture wars." They "became a battleground"? Are electric cars also Transformers, capable of changing into a culture wars battleground? Obviously not! Then on Monday, Paul Krugman and/or his editors at The New York Times decided on a headline that told readers " Climate is now a culture war issue ." Did "climate" just happen to become "a culture war issue"? Or did a very specific set of actors politicize the issue as part of a long-term strategy to prevent regulations? Krugman pretty much explains that it’s the latter, yet writes the "cultural dimension of climate arguments has emerged at the worst possible moment." Climate change didn't "emerge" all on its own as a social issue; it was thrust into that framing very deliberately by fossil fuel industry-funded lobby groups to build political opposition to otherwise popular policies to address pollution. Similarly, the Guardian's EVs didn't drive themselves to the culture war battleground! Then, an NPR interview from Tuesday with Trump-era EPA staffer turned fossil fuel-funded front group staffer Mandy Gunasekara : “ If Republicans win the White House in 2024, climate policy will likely change .” Though NPR does a fine job setting out the facts in the interview, and the headline does at least mention Republicans, the headline is still written as though "climate policy" is an actor with its own agency that will somehow naturally respond to GOP leadership. In reality, Republicans wielding power will intentionally change climate policy. Worst, though, was this headline to an otherwise solid piece of reporting by Jean Chemnick in E&E News: “ EPA climate rule finds new adversaries .” To be clear, Chemnick's a great reporter, and the story makes it clear that among the “new adversaries” there are groups representing "power companies that are overwhelmingly dependent on fossil assets." And to her credit, Chemnick also quotes a policy expert debunking the arguments being made by the climate adversaries as well as an energy industry expert who debunks the claim that the new EPA rule is unreasonable. So readers who make it all the way through the story will know that the climate rule didn't seek out or randomly discover it had enemies. But whoever wrote that headline, most likely an editor and not Chemnick, did readers a disservice with the passive voice that hides the true players. After all, the EPA climate rule didn't sprout legs, eyes, and a bad attitude like a punk version of " I'm Just A Bill " to roam the streets of DC looking for trouble. It's a rule that would impact the profits of polluters, and those polluters have attacked the regulation in exactly the same way that they have obstructed every single attempt to regulate them since the dawn of the EPA. In each example, headline writers opted to ignore a cardinal rule of journalism, one that even Google teaches developers to use in their technical writing : to use active voice instead of passive voice. And in each case, the outlets’ decision to do so obscures a bad actor wielding power in a very deliberate manner. Fossil fuel-funded disinformation made climate change into a culture war issue. Climate didn't volunteer! Fossil fuel-funded Republicans will change climate policy. Policy doesn't change itself! Fossil fuel-funded utilities find excuses to oppose the new EPA climate rule. The rule didn't go looking for a fight! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/9/2186149/-Passive-Aggression-Regulations-Don-t-Find-Enemies-And-Climate-Didn-t-Politicize-Itself Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/