The Los Angeles Times published a sprawling essay Wednesday written by environmental reporter Rosanna Xia, who expressed overwhelming grief about the prospect of climate change and called to "fix individualism" and "reimagine" society's "systems" to address climate change.
"How do you cope? I feel the sorrow, the quiet plea for guidance every time someone asks me this question. As an environmental reporter dedicated to helping people make sense of climate change, I know I should have answers," Xia lamented in her essay. "But the truth is, it took me until now to face my own grief."
Two paragraphs later, Xia said that she finds herself "questioning whether I could ever justify bringing my own children into this world," adding that she "can't help but feel like we're just counting down the days to our own extinction" and noting the amount of plastic used nationwide and decreasing populations of certain butterfly species.
Xia's essay underscores how energy and environmental reporters, purportedly tasked with objectively reporting stories related to their beat, often have the same views as far-left climate activists. Such despair about climate, for example, is a hallmark of groups that have called on the federal government to declare a "climate emergency" and disrupt public events nationwide to protest fossil fuels.
Later in her story, Xia calls for fixing "individualism" and reimagining "the systems that got us into such a devastating crisis in the first place" in order to save the planet.
"It is not too late to turn your climate anxiety into climate empathy," she wrote. "Acknowledging the emotional toll on people beyond yourself can be an opportunity to listen and support one another. Embracing our feelings—and then finding others who also want to turn their fear into action—can be the missing spark to much-needed social and environmental healing."
In a coinciding article also published Wednesday, Xia listed book recommendations for people with climate anxiety who need hope. "The future of our planet has become all but impossible to ignore, and it's not exactly easy digging your way out of a despair that is so deeply connected to, well, everything," she said.
The worldview presented by Xia, according to Alliance for Consumers executive director O.H. Skinner, leads directly to policies that make everyday items, such as residential appliances and cars, more expensive. Activists have increasingly targeted those items in their regulatory war on carbon emissions, even as the price of goods across the board have skyrocketed in recent years.
"This is the ultimate worldview that motivates so much of the war on household appliances and everyday conveniences: these activists don't care that life is being made harder, because they ultimately care about ideology over their own children, future children, or even their own lives," Skinner told the Washington Free Beacon. "It's sad, and not a path most consumers want to follow."
But Xia and other journalists at both the Times and other mainstream outlets that have published "climate anxiety" pieces are often rewarded by organizations that oversee journalism awards.
For example, Xia was awarded a prize last year for her reporting on the environment by the Society of Environmental Journalists, an organization that presents itself as nonpartisan but routinely targets the oil industry and recommends that reporters reach out to activist groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists when writing stories.
And other Times reporters have been awarded prizes by Covering Climate Now, a group that also presents itself as nonpartisan but was cofounded by left-wing news outlet The Nation. The group is housed at the Washington, D.C.-based Fund for Constitutional Government, which boasts funding from top liberal nonprofits such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and MacArthur Foundation, according to tax filings reviewed by the Free Beacon.