The warming condition of the earth and the serious efforts of all countries to suppress the rise in earth’s temperature so that it does not soar to 2 degrees have apparently not received adequate media attention. In fact, the aggressiveness of inter-country forums in driving global collaboration under the umbrella of the Paris Agreement, plus the commitment and seriousness of each country in executing Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is not enough to become a magnet for global media to report on it.
Less than 1% of news regarding climate change is published in the global media, said CEO & President of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Jon Sawyer in a keynote speech at the forum “Climate and Labor Dialogue: Bridging Ideas, Crafting Collaborations” held by the Pulitzer Center in Bangkok, February 22-23 2024.
Discussing global issues as crucial as climate change with very minimal media exposure is a big challenge. The existence of the Pulitzer Center is strategic and essential as a world-class non-profit NGO that consistently carries out the mission of fighting for the power of journalism reporting so that complex, global-scale issues become relevant and inspiring so that they can move them into real action.
To implement its mission, the Pulitzer Center organizes several program schemes, including Impact Seed Funding (ISF). ISF is a micro-scale grant program intended for researchers and academics in higher education. This program is designed to enrich the perspective of the academic community on important global issues related to rainforests, climate change and labor rights.
In working on the ISF project, grant recipients must utilize inspiring journalism works produced with the support of the Pulitzer Center. In 2023, my proposal is entitled “Increasing Awareness of the Impact of climate change on Workers’ Health Through Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Teaching Methods” was selected to be funded by the Pulitzer Center for the Southeast Asia region.
Low Literacy
Even though it is in the top 10 countries producing greenhouse gas emissions in the world, Indonesian people’s understanding of climate change very low. It was recorded that 76% of Indonesians surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) in 2022 said they knew ‘a little’ regarding global warming (55%) while 20% admitted they had ‘never heard of it’.
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Many people understand climate change simply as the earth’s temperature warms, a phenomenon that is often mentioned global warming. However, this increase in temperature is only the beginning of a long, complicated story. The Earth works as a system, where everything is connected, changes in one area can affect changes in other areas.
Society interacts with and experiences climate change in various forms. Rural communities and urbanites, those living in mountainous and coastal areas, certainly bear the brunt of the impact climate change which is not the same. Almost certainly, climate change influences all lines of human life, in heterogeneous scales and forms.
One thing that may be the same is if knowledge and understanding of climate change is still so limited, then ordinary people will misunderstand the phenomenon, give wrong responses and attitudes, and potentially fail to carry out preventive, let alone curative and corrective efforts.
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Multidimensional Impact
Currently, impact climate change including water scarcity and even drought, severe fires, rising sea levels, floods, melting polar ice, hurricanes and declining biodiversity. Not only that, climate change can affect human health. Hot air causes dehydration, heat stroke, ARI, kidney failure, liver damage, and mental health problems.
Climate change also has an impact on the economic sector. With the occurrence of water scarcity, even drought, this clearly poses a serious threat to the agricultural and plantation sectors, which in turn affects the aspect of adequate food availability and has the potential to trigger the emergence of food security issues. In urban areas, in industrial enclaves, workers in the formal sector, whether they have to work in open or closed spaces, face the same health risks. Not to mention, if we talk regarding the fate of informal sector workers, we can be sure that their position will become weaker and more vulnerable when faced with issues climate change.
Fishermen also face difficult situations because climate change changes sea temperatures, changes the distribution and migration of fish. This clearly has an impact on fishing patterns and forces fishermen to chase fish far out to sea. Not only that, climate change also forces fishermen to adjust the time and season when catching fish. Not to mention that increasing sea temperatures can reduce fish stocks, making it even more difficult for fishermen to get adequate fish catches. This clearly has an impact on the sustainability of marine resources.
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The residential aspect is also vulnerable to being affected climate change. People who live on small islands or coastal areas face the risk of losing their homes due to rising sea levels which cause parts of the land to be submerged in water, or even drown. Look at what’s happening in the Maldives, an island nation made up mostly of low-lying atolls. In 2019, Kiribati and Tuvalu have lost some of their land area because their land elevation is low so sea level rise can cause sea water intrusion into fresh water sources, thereby destroying the ecosystem. Vanuatu, Fiji and Palau also experienced a similar fate. In the future, the number of “climate refugees” is expected to increase.
Community Education
Considering the complexity and massiveness of the impacts climate changeneeds to be designed in a structured and systematic way to educate people so that they know, understand and are aware that they are currently living on an earth that is experiencing climate change and global warming. People can no longer be allowed to ignore and assume that this issue is irrelevant, just because they don’t know or are not aware of it.
When the community has a better understanding of climate change, they automatically and consciously change their way of life and adapt. Society can be task-force important in preventing worsening of damage due to impacts climate change. Society can also encourage and demand policy makers to take more ambitious steps, it is not enough to just carry out the steps business as usual to overcome the impact climate change and can hold them accountable if they fail to carry out mitigation.
One way is to increase lay understanding of the problem climate change What happens universally is through the funnel of education. Lecturers have the opportunity to open discourse with fellow colleagues, especially with students in their classes. Also, lecturers have the opportunity to discuss this issue by providing a framework of thinking according to their field of expertise, so that later it is hoped that various perspectives on solutions that are cross-scientific, cross-sectoral, multi-dimensional and comprehensive will emerge.
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