It's said by many expert investors that the best way to read a set of annual accounts is backwards. This is because the bits that management don't want you to notice are tucked away right at the end. They hope that by the time you've read the three pages on pension schemes, you'll be fast asleep and will completely miss the contingent liability that's about to swallow the company.
It might well be advisable to read press reports on global warming in the same way. Here's a classic of the kind from the Associated Press on the subject of land loss on the east coast of England:
Climate change spurs coastal defense retreat yells the headline in the Courier News, reporting from Happisburgh in Norfolk. We're all doomed!! seems to be the subplot. There are lots of stories of houses falling into the sea, land no longer being protected because sea levels are going to rise, concerned villagers feeling cheated. It's all because of global warming you see! Cue interviews with European environment official, quote from Stern review and so on. Cause and effect duly insinuated into readers' heads (but no outright declaration of course)...
...and then right at the end the get out:
Happisburgh, on the East Anglia coast, always has been vulnerable, and accounts of houses, lighthouses or farmland collapsing into the sea date back to the early 19th century.
I call this dishonest, but then I'm just a heretic.