Climate change education: The media role

Climate change education: The media role
By Damian Daga
Published Wednesday, 6th May, 2012 in The Voice
The emergence of climate change impact is felt globally and has assumed the front burner status in environmental and sustainable development issues. In this case, the need for climate change and environmental education has become imperative, viz-a-viz the media’s role in championing the cause, in order to cushion the effect of climate change/environmental education illiteracy.
   Environmental education helps to draw a graphic understanding of the causes and effect of positive and negative aspects, of both global and local issues of both short term and long term, direct and indirect impacts on the environment. Environmental education further boils down to creating an avenue for noting that climate change among others are real, with debilitating effects, such effects include disrupted ecosystems, seasonal circles, water needs, food production, and agriculture. Other adverse effects of climate change result to drought, floods, poverty, malnutrition and several health and socio-economic problems among other vast effects.
Indicators point to the fact that most of Nigeria’s ecosystems are threatened by climate change and it will create more problems for a population of over 160 million already weighed down by impoverishment.
Therefore, the media’s role in climate change and environmental education cannot be over emphasized. It ought to be given priority as the media is duly equipped (if properly harnessed) to play a critical role in communicating environmental and climate change issues to the public. This would ultimately enhance sustainable development.
Suffice to say, coping with climate change is a major problem not just for Nigeria but the world at large. It is obvious too that, although people have began to observe changes in the climate, however, they do not know what to do about it. To this end, it is rightly the media’s role in consonance with its dictates of “informing” and “educating” to step up and throw more light on the happenstance of climate change.
With the media actively engaged in climate change education, the dearth of environmental education will be revived to a status of an effective guide for the public to come to terms with issues bordering on weather, climate change and environmental protection, etc.
So to say, the media’s potency as an effective mobilization, informative and education tool is not in doubt. Considerably, the media played a pivotal role in disaster and crisis management in the past and can do same in the scope of climate change education, just like it did for HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns.
Basically, what the media needs as a very first step in a successful climate change educational drive is, regular and accurate dissemination of the issues of concerned with a usage of the best possible simple presentations, which would substitute most scientific jargons for easier understanding, then greater understanding of climate change would be realized. Bringing to bear the fact of media as the fourth realm, it could influence a change from the perceived government’s un-preparedness to keep abreast, climate change and environmental issues and education. Seemingly, two out of three environmental analysts have opined that the Nigerian government (as well as state governments) disregards the grave danger of climate change to the nation’s economy and resources.
A knock also goes the media way as some media houses are criticised for not given emphasis to the burning issue of climate change and the environment. It has become common to see several pages on politics and business in newspapers and magazines but none on the environment.
A pertinent question arises; if the government and especially the media do not impart the knowledge of climate change to the masses, who will? Your answer is as good as this writer’s, therefore, it behooves the media to chart a course in giving prominence to climate change issues and indeed the whole environment so that the masses too would know of the implications of their actions or in-actions in the environment and the disaster.
Managing climate change through the media is truly an enviable height because without it, adequately achieving sustainable development through climate change education is near impossible. It is this same media that serves as a demystifying parameter of usually confusing scientific terms in the process of communication on climate change.
For more efficient media role in propagating climate change education, especially in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, the following should be observed: climate change awareness should be encouraged among journalists; enhanced coordination between government and the media; more donor participation by organizations in the sphere of climate change; and the provision of more resources by media houses for coverage of climate change stories.
By and large, even with the seeming hurdles faced by the media in climate change education in Nigeria, there is a modest improvement. To that effect, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Ministry of Environment may be repositioning for general environmental issues awareness and sustainable development. This could be noted from the recent hosting of stakeholders to a brainstorming meeting with a view to drawing out a policy document for presentation at this year’s Rio+ 20.
To this end, it is only proper to put all hands on deck in the media world to be in the fore front understanding climate change and ways to mitigate its effects. The media by right as an agenda setting mechanism can, and should never shy away from this onerous task of educating the masses on climate.