Podcast Project: Quit Paris?
How pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords went from fringe media to the mainstream
At the beginning of September, ACT announced their new climate policy: withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, or push for “fundamental reform of the Paris framework.” New Zealand is not on track to meet its obligations under the 2015 agreement, which aims to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees more than pre-industrial levels.
ACT’s announcement was celebrated in some quarters. Farming advocacy group Groundswell announced “The Quit Paris campaign is working.”
Bryce McKenzie, told Rural News back in July that he believes the Quit Paris campaign will become one of the major issues at the next general election, due to be held late next year. Speaking on Reality Check Radio (RCR) the platform of conspiracy theorist outfit Voices for Freedom a few years weeks, host Jaspreet Boparai (who is also a district councilor in Southland) praised McKenzie for having “managed to nudge the feds into action” referring to the more mainstream Farmer advocacy group Federated Farmers, who had recently issued a statement that “dangerous” emissions reduction targets were being driven by “Flawed assumptions”.
“Hopefully people will start realising that this is just an absolute farce, the whole climate thing, it’s just that shocking, that disgusting.” Mckenzie stated, in a comment Boparai described as “music to my ears”.
When RCR send a reporter to the New Zealand First party conference, Shane Jones, Minister for Oceans and Fisheries told him “we’ve just got to wake up and realise the notion that you can save the planet was woke folly”
Quitting the Paris Climate Accords is on the political agenda, thanks in large part to Groundswell and RCR Media.
How did that happen? It’s a story I want to investigate further, but to do so I need your help. I’m crowdfunding to raise money to produce a six episode podcast looking at the campaign to Quit Paris. The idea for the project comes partially from the research I’m doing for my masters degree in media and communications, and from seeing the discourses I recognised from fringe media now being present in more mainstream conversation. I want to look, in a thorough and indepth way, at how these ideas made the jump from the fringe to the mainstream.
New Zealand has less than half the number of professional journalists we did 20 years ago. While outlets like RCR media seem to have copious amounts of funding to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation, journalism has become a labour-of-love for most of us. Only 0.02% of subscribers to Feijoa Dispatch are paying subscribers- and I get it, we’re in a cost of living crisis and paywalled articles are a luxury. For those who can’t commit to a subscription, I’m asking for a one-off pledge of NZ$5 (for international readers, that’s about US$3.50 or €2.50) to make this project happen.
This will allow me to pay myself the equivalent of a ‘Jobseeker’ benefit for three months, between a ‘day job’ contract ending and the academic year starting (I’ve been studying part time, but with the scarcity of jobs right now, I plan to ride out the recession as a full time graduate student).
The good news? I’m almost at the goal already, as I’ve been promoting this campaign on social media for a couple of weeks. I’m hoping some of my readers can help push it over the line.
Contribute here. You will only be charged if the goal is met.