“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, not every man’s greed.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi1
The Polar bear, breathes in from the north, from the land of the frozen seas …
With its fur so white and its eyes so bright, now what can the secret be?
A picture of the polar bear standing on the last sheet of ice in the distant North Pole along with the headline “Be Worried, Be Very Worried” splashed on the 3 April 2006 cover of TIME magazine. The cover pages of the magazines National Geographic and Wildlife also showcased a picture of the polar bear with the headlines “Polar Vortex,” “Global Warming,” “Arctic Meltdown.”
Climate Change scientists and scholarship that disregarded the notion that Climate Change is for real 20 years ago have today openly and publicly accepted that they were wrong and have plunged back into projecting the trends and areas that will shape the discourse in the coming years. The pandemic that we lived through in 2020 and continue to face in 2021 has become the fierce wind that gives strength to the glowing embers of a Climate Change narrative that was dying away. Today, world leaders – both political and business – are having conversations around the phrases “race to zero emissions,” “reaching tipping point” and “human-made Climate Change.”
The polar bear, in all its pure white and noble appearance, was appealing to the inhabitants of the entire planet, standing forlornly with its habitat endangered and no other place to migrate to. The subtle messages screamed loud through this frame. Around this frame the impact of Climate Change was meant to be conveyed to the world. The critical role of the centrality that mainstream media or newspapers and magazines played in the understanding of Climate Change can be interpreted in three distinct layers – first, it was meant to highlight the role played by governments in combating the problem collectively; second, it directed attention toward susceptible regions, flora and fauna, as well as indigenous communities that were most affected by the ravages of Climate Change; and, third, it played a significant role in the projection of people who were emerging as green warriors championing for the cause of the environment through their activism and solutions that they offered on the field.
Here and throughout this book I focus on mainstream media – mainly the print medium – and situate my findings through the narratives of the Press.
Scholarship on news coverage of Climate Change has focused largely on the United States and Western Europe. Climate skepticism, which is predominantly the core of the narrative in these countries, is not necessarily addressed in developing economies. In Asia, the continent which will face the brunt of Climate Change due to its population density, the narrative has been restricted to coverage during calamities or major international environment summits. This book will not only draw attention toward current research in Climate Change coverage by the media but also critically examine the role played by the media to shape the discourse for government and non-governmental organizations to set the agenda. The book will appeal to the media and Climate Change scholars, journalists, policy makers and scientists to stop being mere spectators in this discourse but become active producers in the creation of news. This could be achieved by highlighting the significant role of Climate Action warriors, thereby shaping media coverage toward more proactive narratives rather than “doomsday” voices.
The purpose of writing this book is first to draw attention to the fact that reporting of Climate Change is not only a complex issue but a significant one. Media coverage of Climate Change issues, especially in Press narratives, can have direct policy implications. The coverage of protests and activism can directly or indirectly show how political elites, policy makers and local administration evaluate these protests as success stories. This voice of the public can serve as an opinion when it reaches government agencies through the channels of mainstream media and news media.
Second, since media coverage of Climate Change has implications for policy matters, it is critical to examine who is benefitting from this narrative and who is losing out. Here, the onus is on media houses and journalists themselves to produce and disseminate facts to the key stakeholders in a balanced and fair manner. Finally, it is interesting to analyze how Climate Change communication is dissected and decoded among the different stakeholders (scientists, communities, media and policy makers) and how they engage in this discourse.
An assessment of the 2012–2017 media coverage of the Western Ghats as a macrocosm of Climate Change complexities serves as an eye-opener to make sense of the vast and rich biodiversity that exists in India and the country’s resurgence to improve its economy after freeing itself from colonial rule in 1947.
Asian countries are facing the brunt of Climate Change as they toe the line between the path of development and growth while adhering to COP protocols. The underlying concept of this book is to highlight the significant role played by the media in either underplaying or overly highlighting the communication of Climate Change.
This book relies on a research project that examined media representations of Climate Change through the coverage of the declaration of the Western Ghats as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots by UNESCO. The findings provide evidence that media coverage of issues related to Climate Change peaks during times of crisis. Media coverage was also found to be linked to the controversy surrounding the zoning of Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) in the Karnataka region of the Western Ghats. Furthermore, it was also concluded that media coverage peaks when issues related to overlapping themes of sustainability, policy decisions and Climate Change occur.
As we enter a new decade – a decade that begins with a pandemic that was never witnessed before – the discussions around Climate Change assume new meaning and significance. The interdependencies in nature, the symbiotic relationships and the need for interpreting and effectively communicating Climate Change to the various actors involved are calls for the media, governments and citizens to get involved in actively.
India’s rainforests
Why should the Western Ghats, India’s rainforests, which are a thriving ecosystem in the southwestern peninsula of India, rich in biodiversity, a treasure house of endemic species, pristine and magnificent, and spanning an area of 1,64,280 square kilometers be considered as a barometer for understanding the Press narratives around Climate Change?
Home to around 50 million people, the Western Ghats consist of 4,156 villages across six states, running north to south over a distance of 1,500 kilometers, with peaks ranging from 1,030 to 2,695 meters above sea level and rainfall ranging from 80 to 320 centimeters on an average. Furthermore, the Western Ghats are the source of major river systems, including the Cauvery, Krishna, Godavari, Palar and Pennar basins.
According to documented reports, the Western Ghats cover barely 5% of India’s forest area but are home to 1,800 species endemic to the region and consist of 27% of all the species of higher plants recorded in the Indian region. A significant number of industries and resources are found along the Western Ghats, which traverses five states on the western coast – Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The Western Ghats were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2012. The government constituted two expert panel committees to give recommendations on the scope and area of development after the ESAs were earmarked following the tag given by UNESCO. This resulted in political unrest and protests since crores of rupees were at stake for projects that would have to be shelved. Indigenous communities living inside the forests too were asked to evict, and their livelihoods were on the verge of being wiped away as these forests were now protected reserves. Over a period of five years, between 2012 and 2017, Press narratives display a range of themes and topics, giving ample scope for an analysis of the coverage of media reporting on Climate Change.
The story of Climate Change is a global one. Through the perspectives that journalism reflects in this five-year coverage, there are many lessons that are global in nature. Through the reporting, priorities and interests of key readers or audiences are often reflected. Often, the newspaper or media channel which has a wider reach also serves those vested interests. Climate Change affects people in the developing countries, and they are struggling to respond. The government and not-for-profit agencies that work in this sector can provide solutions, but the message and language around the Press narratives too need to be powerful.
The construct of the polar bear seems far-fetched for people in developing and least developed countries – many of them highly vulnerable to the ongoing impacts of Climate Change, such as extreme heat waves, rainfall, tropical storms and change in weather patterns. Lack of reporting on localized data on how Climate Change has affected the local economy may need to be translated in a simpler form for consumption of news in local communities. If access to local data, experts who can substantiate and provide quotes and funding to cover Climate Change is available at the disposal of every journalist, the Press narratives can show a great amount of direction and resolve. A steady flow of information that is factual and credible through mainstream media, can communicate the gravity of the situation relating to Climate Change. This consistency in reporting can impact the manner in which local bodies, non-governmental agencies and government can make sense of the strong signals emitting from ground-up to make key policy decisions.
Press narratives have inspired a cultural shift with artists and musicians using Climate Change, the most pressing problem of this generation, to communicate through their works. N. S. Harsha, a Mysore-based artist, created a canvas which was up for auction at Christies in 2007–2008. It depicted hundreds of empty plastic chairs strewn at an election rally in India, scattered paper cups and all the garbage generated after the rally is over. Ricky Key, Grammy winner, uses music to collaborate with artists around the world to spread key messages about conservation and wildlife.
Climate Change stories from around the world
“Climate change is a notoriously difficult subject for journalists to report on, for editors to maintain interest in, and for audiences to grasp” (Painter, 2010, p. 3). Because journalists, like scientists, look for objectivity and fairness in reporting, an interesting correlation exists between the increasing number of peer-reviewed scientific papers that are being published and the increase in these research papers being cited as evidence in media reports by journalists. There are various databases to search through which list the thousands of academic papers published each year. Amidst options such as Google Scholar and Web of Science, Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, was identified for this study (“Analysis: The Climate papers,” 2016).
In Scopus, we searched for any academic paper with the phrase “Climate Change” or “global warming” in its title, abstract or keywords – to look at both the top papers and all papers far beyond the top 100. The search yielded a total of almost 120,000 papers as of the beginning of June 2016. Looking at the countries where these institutions reside, there is a prominent leaning toward Western countries in the northern hemisphere. The United States and the United Kingdom dominate, with almost three-quarters of the top 100 papers. The fourth place goes to the paper that was reported by more news outlets than any other – “Future temperature in southwest Asia projected to exceed a threshold for human adaptability” – in Nature Climate Change. This study projected that conditions in the Middle East could become so hot and humid by the end of the century that being outside for more than six hours would be intolerable for humans. And in the fifth place is the Science paper, “Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus,” which finds the much-discussed “slowdown” in warming on the Earth’s surface may not exist a...
