There’s a depressing pattern in Australian climate coverage. Every heat wave brings articles from one side about climate catastrophe, countered by articles from the other side downplaying the connection. Every policy announcement triggers predictable responses from predictable commentators. Every climate report becomes ammunition in an ongoing culture war.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time, not that long ago, when climate change was treated primarily as a scientific and policy question. Now it’s a tribal identity marker, and the media environment has played a significant role in making that happen.

Here’s what went wrong.

First, the media embraced false balance for far too long. The scientific consensus on climate change has been overwhelming for decades, but many outlets continued treating it as a he-said-she-said debate between equal perspectives. For every climate scientist explaining the evidence, there’d be a contrarian offering doubt. Readers came away thinking the science was more uncertain than it actually is.

This wasn’t neutral journalism—it was bias masquerading as balance. By giving disproportionate platform to fringe views, media coverage created the impression of genuine scientific debate where none existed. And once audiences believe something is genuinely debatable, it becomes much easier to pick the side that aligns with your existing politics.

Second, climate coverage became wrapped up with broader political and cultural conflicts. Supporting climate action became coded as left-wing, opposing it as right-wing. Climate change stopped being about science or policy and became about which tribe you belonged to.

Media coverage amplified this. Climate stories started appearing in opinion sections rather than news. Columnists made climate change about their pet political issues—progressive values, economic regulation, lifestyle choices. Conservative commentators responded by making climate skepticism part of their brand. The issue itself became secondary to the cultural combat.

Third, the discourse shifted from science to catastrophism and denialism, with no middle ground. You either believe we’re facing imminent apocalypse or you think it’s all a hoax. Nuanced positions—acknowledging the reality of climate change while debating the best policy responses—became nearly impossible to articulate in mainstream media.

This polarisation serves media organisations well. Climate stories generate engagement because they’re tribal markers. People share articles that confirm their identity and argue with articles that challenge it. The algorithm loves it. The business model rewards it. The discourse suffers.

Australian coverage has its own particular dysfunctions. Our fossil fuel industry is economically significant, which creates pressure on coverage. Our political system makes climate policy a partisan football. Our media ownership is concentrated in ways that allow individual voices to have outsized influence.

But the underlying dynamic—climate as culture war rather than policy challenge—is similar across most Western democracies. And it’s making the problem harder to solve.

Because here’s the thing: climate change is actually happening, the impacts are real, and we need to figure out how to respond. But productive conversation about responses is nearly impossible when the discourse is entirely polarised.

You can’t have a rational debate about carbon pricing versus direct action when half the participants deny there’s a problem and the other half are convinced anyone questioning their preferred solution is a climate criminal. You can’t discuss adaptation strategies when acknowledging the need for adaptation gets you accused of defeatism. You can’t debate nuclear power’s role without it becoming a proxy battle in the renewables war.

The media environment enables and encourages this. Articles are framed as “climate activists versus climate deniers” rather than “different approaches to climate policy.” Commentators stake out extreme positions because that’s what gets attention. Nuance is punished, certainty is rewarded, and we all become dumber.

What would better climate coverage look like? It would start by treating the scientific consensus as settled and focusing on policy responses. It would acknowledge trade-offs honestly—renewable transition has costs as well as benefits, just like inaction does. It would feature actual policy experts rather than political performers.

It would also disaggregate different questions. “Is climate change real?” and “What should we do about it?” are different questions requiring different kinds of expertise. Conflating them—which Australian media constantly does—muddies the conversation.

And it would resist the urge to make every climate story about culture war. Sometimes a heat wave is just a heat wave. Sometimes a policy announcement is just a policy announcement. Not everything needs to be filtered through tribal identity.

I’m not optimistic this will happen. The incentives all point the wrong way. Polarised coverage generates more engagement than nuanced coverage. Clear tribal markers are easier to market than complex policy analysis. And audiences have been trained to expect climate stories that confirm their priors.

But we could at least try. Because the current model isn’t working. We’re having the same arguments we were having twenty years ago, just louder and angrier. The planet keeps warming while we argue about whether it’s warming at all.

Australian media could choose to cover climate change like the complex policy challenge it is—acknowledging reality, debating responses, holding governments accountable for their choices. Instead, we get tribal combat disguised as journalism.

And we all suffer for it.

The climate won’t wait for us to finish our culture war. Eventually, reality will assert itself regardless of which side you’re on. By then, the media’s role in polarising the discourse will be just another tragic footnote in the larger story of how we failed to act when we had the chance.

But hey, at least the engagement numbers were good.