The mean global surface temperature is shown below.
This data is accumulated on a yearly basis, although there are spikes, the temperature changes do not exhibit the sort of daily shifts suited to coverage in a 24 hour news cycle. Thus climate change struggles to generate attention grabbing headlines for the front pages.
So what daily changes are there that do generate headlines?
Two good examples are given here.
First, the Metro gives us “The Graph That Says We Are Headed For Trouble After Brexit”
This is the graph of 10 year Government Bond Yields. The scale is not menitoned and is not easy to decipher by eyesight alone, but we can see a sharp drop on the right hand side.
The article goes on to say
British 10-year government bond yields have sunk below 1% for the first time since records began in 1729, which is not good news for the economy.
This certainly sounds like bad news, and probalby is bad news, but perhaps if we take a wider look we might get some perspective.
The graph below shows the same bond over a longer period (below is a year)
Here the scale is decipherable. Additionally one can look over a longer period here. When put in this context does Brexit look like the root cause for the low yied? One could draw a very different conclusion, that perhaps the yield declined steadily since 2010, when the current Governemnt was elected in to power in coalition.
The second example is in the Independent. It concerns the shares of banks, noticeably RBS and Barclays.
The headline,
“Barclays and RBS shares suspended from trading after tanking more than 8% after Brexit”
certainly sounds dramatic. One concludes that Brexit has caused the banks a heart attack. The atrticle goes on to say
Bank shares have been hard hit following the UK’s decision to leave the EU on Friday
Gloomy stuff. HSBC Boss Douglas Flint is quoted as saying
“We will be working tirelessly in the coming weeks and months to help our customers adjust to and prepare for the new environment”
However let’s zoom out a little and see how these shares have performed in the last year.
RBS
Barclays
HSBC
One can clearly see that all of the shares above have been “tanking” for while. Brexit does not even affect the HSBC Share price.
Presumably Mr Flint has been working tirelessly all year.
So, in conclusion, there are some measures whose daily fluctuations create the morning’s headlines. It is just that they probably shouldn’t.