Is "scale insensitivity" destroying climate activism?
Here's an image you're probably familiar with: it's the BBC News website banner. The space between "InDepth" and "UK" is reserved for quick links to the most important issues of the day, and right now it reads "Israel-Gaza war | War in Ukraine | Climate". It's fair to assume that the highest priority issues are closer to the left, based on how frequently these issues end up in the headline article. So, I wondered, how has the priority - according to the BBC - of the biggest issues changed over time? I decided to sample the website using the wayback machine , once per year from September 2020 to September 2025, and here's the result: Over these 6 years the BBC News banner has had between 1 and 4 quick links. And it seems to be a consistent feature that whenever a new story comes along that threatens fewer lives, it takes a higher priority position in the banner. "Climate" didn't turn up until 2022, and when it did it...