That the media have (with some regularity) promoted the most catastrophic predictions, predictions that were subsequently falsified, is not exactly news.
If your only experience of how the media has covered climate change is through posts like the one you linked, then you'll naturally come to that conclusion, but I don't think it has any basis in reality.
Again, my root question is "why have there been so many prominent predictions of climate disaster that have failed to materialize?"
The sources for these predictions have largely been the media, but the sources are generally respected institutions or individuals, and the articles have claimed the backing of scientific authority. To what extent have these failed predictions stemmed from the media, and to what extent have they stemmed from the scientific authorities themselves?
A good part of the blame certainly rests with media. The media is motivated by what is advertiser friendly, and fear sells. However, I do not think the scientific establishment is without fault here.
No doubt part of the problem is the sheer complexity of the system they are studying, and perhaps premature confidence in the methodology of using computer models in the study of complex systems. But it also seems that a bias towards certain policy measures has led some scientists to overstate the confidence, severity, or urgency of predictions.
I do not mean to imply some sort of conspiracy theory here. I simply think that, psychologically, scientists tend to be a of a sort more attuned to "far problems". This tendency allows scientists to sometimes correctly anticipate threats, such as those from a global pandemic, but can also lead to a false equivalence between future uncertain costs and present certain ones.
I am not ignoring experts, nor am I claiming that they are completely wrong about global warming. I would more consider myself in the company of folks such as economist David Friedman or climatologist Judith Curry (neither of whom are in the employ of Big Oil) who both express doubts about the degree of consensus[0] and the severity and certainty of the warming and the value of drastic action in the present[1].
