Imagine the world in 2050. It isn't just robots living among us or flying cars. More likely we will see more wildfires, more people, higher temperatures, and more animals to add on the extinct species list. According to a report done by CNN, nearly 1.2 billion people could be displaced by the climate crisis by 2050 if we do not do something about it now. it holds real threats. However, our greatest assets in fighting these don't just lie in 100% bioengineering or green buildings.
More likely, it is something that is in front of us every single day. Journalism. You might be wondering, how can journalism stop all of these catastrophic things from happening?
To answer this question, a new term has been created called climate literacy. A climate literate person is somebody who understands the essential... essential aspects of the Earth's system and can distinguish a credible source from a non-credible one. Gritter awareness with regards to the climate crisis will allow for more of the youth to become climate literate and understand and respond to the issues that our world will be facing in the future. Before my junior year of high school, I thought I knew everything that I needed to know about the planet.
The Earth was warming and we were all going to be doomed in about 12 years. Well, after taking a course on environmental sciences, I learned that the Earth was warm and I learned that I could not be more wrong. While it did open my eyes to a lot of horrifying things happening to our planet right now, it also gave me a renewed sense of hope.
If anything, it gave me more solutions to these issues, like that we can power our homes with renewable energies or reduce our water and trash waste and drive fuel-efficient vehicles. And don't worry if you can't afford an electric car. Those are expensive after all. But there are so many other alternatives, like...
biking, walking, commuting to work, taking the public bus, the list goes on. This new awakening stemmed from the fact that I had learned more about the topic. With every new piece of information given, the puzzle began to solve itself. Like the electrification of both automobiles and buildings would help drastically in reducing the warming of our planet, or that moving away from fossil fuels and instead subsidizing renewable energy sources and increasing the amount it costs for factories to send carbon into the into the atmosphere would altogether slow the heating of the planet acutely. It's more than just recycling bottles.
But even that still helps reduce the plastic in our oceans. Of course, I'm no environmental scientist now, but I have developed an understanding of how and what our and future generations must do to combat this crisis. And that is part of climate literacy.
If more newspapers and media outlets would showcase more articles or stories on climate science, on the climate and really help inform the population, there would be more people who would feel empowered about how they can help the environment. In fact, there's no better way to prove the importance of climate literacy than in books. Within the past century, books have been monumental in changing climate laws with regards to pollution, usage of pesticides, and even global warming itself. Take, for example, Silent Spring, a book written by Rachel Carson, a conservationist. Written in 1962, Silent Spring shed light on the usage of pesticides in the United States.
She showed how the amount of pesticides being used were ineffective, useless, and in the process, declining the bird population rapidly, which would create a scenario of spring being silent, with there no longer being birds to tweet. The book was so powerful that it made DDTs, a chemical formula found in pesticides, illegal, as well as causing a nationwide... movement that created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, this isn't just a problem in the United States.
As I stated earlier, the environment and potential climate disasters that we may face in the future are global issues. In India, a country where their actions are constantly lagging behind the promises other countries make at global climate conferences, the environment is not a big part of literature, with its system of government saying that industrialization should take precedence. in order to gain more global power. It is unfortunate that historically, harming the environment and our world comes hand in hand with larger economic growth. Therefore, there is little to no reporting on some of the most dire issues of our time in some of the biggest countries.
While this may be a sad reality, what can we do in our communities and our countries to promote important economic growth? ideas such as climate literacy and give people a sense of urgency about the environment. Many studies show that the majority of people skip science sections in newspapers. According to a recent study by Pew Research Center, only about 17% of people in the United States are not aware of climate change. of people receive science news a few times a week and actively seek it out.
Regardless to say, not everybody is a scientist, and the science section usually seems daunting, like something that is out of reach or too difficult to understand. This is a problem, as learning about the environment and the problems we face with it are just the first steps to responding to them. Hence the importance of exclusively environmental sections in newspapers.
Current local publications should have a solid column for the environment. In order to make a difference, everybody needs to pitch in. Having local newspapers report on environmental issues that affect their communities would make more people aware of the environment and how it can directly affect their communities.
affect their lives. High schools should also have an environmental section in their paper, as kids probably read their school newspaper more than local ones. Working our way up to the national level, nearly all newspapers should have prominent features that allow readers and users to interact with environmental solutions on the front page.
These interactive features should focus on what people can actually do in their everyday lives, instead of just talking about environmental issues as something that is out of people's control. control. Just like how Silent Spring was able to reverse national laws regarding DDT and pesticide usage, many books are now taking inspiration when it comes to global warming.
Falter by Bill McKibben, The Madhouse Effect by Michael Mann and Tom Toles and hundreds if not thousands more are readily available to the US public. Unfortunately studies show that nearly 24% of Americans haven't read a book in the past year with the majority barely having read more than five. It isn't very likely that many Americans would end up reading a book about the environment.
On the flip side, however, nearly 70% of Americans still read the news. Hence why newspapers, television outlets, magazines, and all sources of media in which people get the news from must have a section for the environment. This section should be everything from air pollution and smog, water pollution in the form of either trash or algal blooms, glooms, deforestation, renewable energy resources, and ways to combat global warming.
Nobody feels motivated to do anything with serious issues if they feel like the battle is already lost. It is important for people to maintain a sense of hope, yet urgency, with regards to the climate crisis. And the way to do that is to promote the issue through all possible sources of media. Thank you so much for listening to my talk.