Oceans Dying As NYTimes Gives Front Page Environmental Coverage to Bad Cable Boxes

The real story from Slate:

The oceans are in a far worse state than previously thought, according to a prestigious group of scientists. Of course, doom-and-gloom environmental stories are so common they’re almost yawn-inducing. But this one is different, insists Time’s Bryan Walsh. The state of the oceans never gets the coverage it really deserves and a report issued by the International Program on the State of the Ocean reveals things are more dire for the marine world than previously thought.

Sure, there’s overfishing, and global warming has created dead zones in the oceans. But the truth is far more frightening as we are “at high risk for entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history,” notes the report written by a global panel of experts. In what is the report’s most stark and shocking suggestion, scientists say that the unprecedented loss of species could be directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions of prehistory. Indeed, the panel of 27 scientists say that a “combination of stressors is creating the conditions associated with every previous major extinction of species in Earth’s history.”

Also shocking is how the scientists detail that the speed and rate at which the oceans are degenerating is much faster than anyone had previously predicted, notes the Independent. In fact, the scientists say that the first steps of a mass extinction may have already begun and some entire marine ecosystems may vanish within a generation. . . .

So there was a big story in the newspaper of record, right?   Not so much--the only mention was on the NYTimes' Green blog, out of sight of oligarchs like the high-rolling Koch Boys who work overtime on new ways to deny the undeniable fact that the future of civilization and most species on Earth hangs in the balance unless humans act radically to slow global warming during this and the next decade.  This is the ballgame.  No more playing if we lose this one.

So what does the Times think is important enough environmentally to put on the front page of the last Sunday edition?  A big story of inefficient cable boxes that consumers must do something about, while the oligarchs like the Koch Boys commit environmental genocide and crimes against the Earth never get called out by the corporate media, nor are they ever mentioned as perpetrators of mass extinction.

Just the tip of iceberg from SourceWatch:

Climate denial and delay

Fighting greenhouse gas regulations

ALEC vs. regional climate accords, 2011 - hidden involvement in at least 6 states

For more detail, see the "Climate Change" section of ALEC.
"The...Koch brothers and their dirty-energy buddies are now bent on dismantling one of the nation’s last hopes for doing anything about climate change in the near term: regional climate accords.

Today, a total of 32 states are active participants or observing members in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast, the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, or the Western Climate Initiative. [ But ] that number will get a lot smaller if the American Legislative Exchange Council — a D.C.-based conservative advocacy organization funded by Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil, and other oil companies and big corporations—gets its way.

ALEC offers legislative templates to state lawmakers who don’t want the hassle of writing their own conservative bills....[and] has produced 800 to 1,000 pieces of so-called “model legislation.” [access to which is restricted]... which makes it difficult to trace a bill’s language back to ALEC. But...it looks like the template has been getting a lot of use lately. Language that regurgitates all of the right’s favorite—and in many cases fallacious—anti-cap-and-trade talking points has cropped up in nearly identical form in resolutions or bills in at least six states...Last year in Michigan...This year...in Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington...New Hampshire.