Nowadays, it’s easy to feel a bit mind numbed when reading about cute polar bears losing their important habitats, extreme weather conditions putting people’s lives at risk and then super sustainable pastel straws to save the environment – in the span of 20 seconds.
Yet this isn’t just a bleak coincidence. It is the result of the consumerism problem there is in journalism today, which makes it easy for the environmental collapse to be framed as a combination of lifestyle choices instead of a serious systemic crisis.
In this economy, advertisements are everywhere, yet media outlets face many demands from their advertisers that are prioritised over the public’s need for truth. Making it easy for the Earth to become less of a home and more of a product.
When the Earth is a product, the audience is no longer a group of citizens with the power to vote and protest; they are a group of customers who are told their only power is their purchasing power.
I’m sure you have come across the Climate Clock. The digital timers portray exactly how much time in years and days to do something before the planet overheats. Personally, I liked the idea of it, since it is a needed reminder for everyone but it’s bitter. It is also quite numbing because as an individual, undoing the damage big powerful corporations have made to Earth is really overwhelming.
Turning a complex crisis into a ticking timer actually borrows a trick from the fast-fashion handbook: manufactured urgency – a tactical psychological framing used to accelerate the decision-making process by creating a perceived, but often artificial, scarcity of time.
When we see a countdown, our brains are wired to look for a quick fix, kind of like a ‘limited time only’ discount. In a world where systemic political change is a slow, multi-generational process, the most accessible way to respond to that ticking clock can seem like a transaction.
We often satisfy the immediate panic by opting for ‘green’ consumer choices today, which can feel more tangible than the long-term work of structural reform. This isn’t necessarily a deliberate ploy by newsrooms to sell products; rather, it is a byproduct of a digital media environment that relies on urgency to capture attention.
That feeling of being overwhelmed by the damage done by big corporations isn’t a coincidence; for years, it was a deliberate marketing goal.
In 2004, the oil giant BP (British Petroleum) popularised the term ‘Carbon Footprint’ with a massive advertising campaign. They even launched a carbon footprint calculator to help people see how their own daily lives, like boiling a kettle or driving to school, were harming the planet.
Journalism fell for this hook completely. For decades, headlines remained focused on individual recycling, lightbulbs, and lifestyle changes, effectively moving the spotlight away from the fact that just 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988.
By following the carbon footprint narrative, the media successfully rebranded a massive industrial crisis as a personal moral one. When the news focuses on us as consumers, it quietly lets the biggest producers off the hook. It’s the ultimate distraction: making ordinary people feel guilty about pastel straws while they are innocent when compared to the heavy industry behind them that continues as normal.
The way journalism visualises the environment often mirrors the visual language of advertising. To grab attention in a crowded social feed, news outlets frequently rely on visual idealism by using ultra-high-definition, cinematic shots of pristine landscapes.
I love images of nature, I take photos often by myself, yet I notice how there can be a consumerist detachment that offers a false sense of security when appreciating nature’s beauty.
When we see a perfectly composed, high-definition photo of a lush forest, our brains subconsciously think: ‘Well, if it still looks that good, it can’t be that bad.’ Yet the glossy aesthetic masks the invisible threats – like soil degradation, ocean acidification, or biodiversity loss which you simply cannot see in a polished shot.
By framing the climate crisis as a series of stunning postcards, nature risks being seen as a content category to be scrolled past rather than the physical foundation of our lives. We end up admiring the view of a crisis, rather than engaging with the active, systemic change needed to solve it.
So now what?
I think that the sense of urgency the climate crisis provokes shouldn’t be pacified by materialistic transactional purchases. The uncomfortable reality is that in order for change to happen in order to better the global climate, democracies must prioritise Earth’s climate over money. Of course, everyone needs money to get by in today’s society, but the line where the climate has been sacrificed to fulfil people’s greed has been crossed far too many times.
If you look past the pastel straws and the manufactured urgency of the digital feed, you can start to see the crisis for what it really is: a systemic challenge that requires more than just a change in our shopping habits. It requires us to stop acting like customers and start acting like citizens again.
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