When banks, financiers and asset managers form a ‘climate cartel’ to coordinate efforts to coerce corporations into compliance with Net Zero goals, the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee sees that as likely an antitrust violation. Collusion.
So, what is it called when ~500 media outlets and thousands of journalists worldwide plan to coerce you into demanding ‘climate action’ from government?
Especially when this plan just happens to coincide with Earth Day… and fortuitously perhaps, the Canadian election?
But, that’s the plan of Covering Climate Now — an umbrella organization for journos and media outlets, a project of Columbia Journalism Review.
The “89% Project” works on a ‘social proof,’ a term coined by psychologist Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence.” It is essentially the same kind of theme behind fashion fads and other social movements.
We humans are herd animals who like to stick together because we know that being an outcast, in our earlier subsistence existence, meant certain death. Therefore, it is still quite easy to trigger the unevolved brain into compliance, by mounting advertising campaigns and social media messaging that purport to show ‘consensus’ by the majority of people.
The corollary of course, is that being ostracized, as psychologist Kipling D. Williams has shown, is the ‘kiss of social death.’ Few people can withstand the brutal slings and arrows for being a ‘contrarian.’
What is important to remember is that few of these campaigns rely on facts or rational arguments. They simply rely on a gut-desire to belong, fit in, comply and be safe.
Covering Climate Now promotes as its ‘truth’ the “People’s Climate Vote” — a 2024 global survey which sampled people in “77 countries, representing 87 percent of the world’s population, [who] were asked their views on climate change.”
Covering Climate Now claims that the results show 89% of the world’s population surveyed want their governments to take more climate action. Thus, they want their media partners to spread this consensus message. To confirm this finding, they refer to another survey by Andre et al (2024): Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action | Nature Climate Change.
In this survey, opinions of 130,000 people in 125 countries, resulted in these results: “Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action.”
According to Covering Climate Now, in the “People’s Climate Vote” many of the people surveyed had never heard of climate change: “For example, 36% of people in Benin and Haiti had “never heard” the term, though when given a one sentence description, the vast majority of them replied, yes, that’s happening here.”
One sentence? That's an ‘informed’ opinion?
People were asked 15 questions in the “People’s Climate Vote” survey; none were about contributing their own money or the cost of climate action.
For instance, Covering Climate Now seems to think the Andre et al (2024) study affirms the fact that citizens are willing to contribute 1% of their annual income to climate action. That’s not the ‘win’ they think — especially in the Canadian context.
Average income in Canada was $43,000 in 2022 (Statistics Canada,) so that would mean Canadians might be willing to pay $431 per year toward climate action. Presently, Carbon Policy Tracker outlines combined climate measures based on federal and provincial expenditures as $476 billion (2020-2030) or $11,900 per resident of Canada.
None of the “People’s Climate Vote” questions were qualitative — providing factual context for the question.
For example, no question set context such as Michael Cembalist’s recent “Heliocentrism” report for JP Morgan which said: “Yet after $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the renewable transition is still a linear one; the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%–0.6% per year.”
After such a statement, a question like, “Do you see $9 trillion as the best use of public funds, or would you rather that money was applied to providing clean water, affordable housing, jobs, and a reliable energy grid with affordable power?”
Now you might argue that my example is unfair. The “People’s Climate Vote” was done in 2024. The JPMorgan report is from 2025. But the pollsters could also have asked if people were familiar with Bjorn Lomborg’s 2020 book “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.”
The Covering Climate Now “89% Project” is a fact-free cynical social proof mass indoctrination attempt by mass media that exposes mainstream media at its worst.
Rather than trying to inform citizens and stimulate thoughtful debate on climate and energy policies, they are trying to con you into demanding climate action, to further impoverish and regulate your life. They are trying to manipulate a federal election in Canada.
So, watch for and call out stories on the “89% Project” from Covering Climate Now signatories — with Agence France Presse and The Guardian leading the charge. In Canada the most likely repeaters — not reporters — will be Covering Climate partners Maclean’s, National Observer, Corporate Knights and The Weather Network and more.
Be part of the 11% who stand back and ask critical questions of media, such as, “Why are you trying to con me into compliance?”