Communicating climate change policies: what can be done at different levels to save nature?

By Clive Mutame Siachiyako

Climate change effects are getting more lethal than imagined before. They are more aggressive. Desperate situations call for desperate approaches it is argued. Policies that aggressively seek to address these effects should thus be designed and implemented. I will first look at policies to regulate pollution. Pollution can be air or water and otherwise. Industrial emissions of varied gases into the air during production present serious environmental hazards.

I am using a house using a chimney to illustrate this point. A house using coal would emit smoke through the chimney in the process forming thick residues that corrode the metallic chimney. The chimney may end up breaking. The same corrosion happens to the ozone layer. The smoke industries emit forms a thicket in the atmosphere which distorts weather patterns, blocks sun rays from reaching the earth; distort earth’s normal warmth, among other effects. A ‘sick’ environment entails sick system that supports life in different forms. It means less ability of nature to provide humanity, animals and water habitats means to life and flourish. For instance, the land loses its ability to support wildlife when its ability to provide pastures for them is distorted by climatic factors. The animals would migrate to others areas in search for food. They end up invading humans, thus resulting into human-animal conflict. 

What then can be done at policy level? There’s need for policies that regulate gas emissions and real walk of the talk. Rules have to be toughened. There’s need for aggressiveness at monitoring compliance to those emission limits. We have many protocols around climate change. We have to do more than mere talk. We have to stand out and get tough to safeguard sustainable future for generations to come. We cannot be selfish and ruin the future of those to come after us. We have to use our moral and humanity sense of responsibility to prepare a place for them. 

Production of today should not be allowed to shut tomorrow. A lot of risks are created in the name of increasing production levels due to less care of the environment and policy monitoring slackness to get things done accordingly. Economic factors are always given much consideration than the environment. But when the environment revolts, how will the economy stand? For instance, if we go by Zambia Electricity Supplying Company’s (ZESCO) argument that power outages are rife in Zambia due to low water levels caused by low rainfall; how would our cherished industrial productivity rise when nature fails to supply water to provide power to run industries? Can economic reasons still hold substance? Can’t we rethink the appetite for economic progress in relation to the environment? I bet we have to save nature now before things really get into a chaotic condition. 

Waste recycling policies should be put in place immediately. Landfills are source of constant smoke into the air in many countries without recycling policies. Nature can be rid of its burden to sustain human life by recycling what’s thrown away from homes. The benefits of recycling go beyond the environment. It creates reliable input into industrial production systems. The increasing amounts of waste homes generate daily are straight forward source of production materials for industries in different sectors of the economy. Recycling preserves natural resources. Natural resources that could have been used to produce something can be done using ‘waste’ generated from homes. 

Fossil fuels [like gasoline, coal, diesel, etc] emitted from decomposing waste are sources of different harmful green gases. Buried waste also cause pollution of water tables. Living organisms in water bodies where polluted water from decomposed waste end-up dying from such pollutions. The result is unbalanced ecosystem. Unbalanced ecosystem brings several climatic factors that affect humans in different ways.

We thus need recycling centres/plants to reduce natural resource use, remove pollutants from waste, and create pro-environmental conscious and behaviour among citizens for the good of nature protection. Everyone can do something to protect the environment. Both developing and developed countries can do a lot. Recycling can also be a source of wealth and job creation. Recycling plants can employ a number of people to process, collect, repackage and others required to complete the recycling and production process of new products from the waste. 

Policies to ban importation of wrecked vehicles that emit excessive smoke should be put in place. If it means people walking because they can’t afford durable vehicles, it has to happen. Nature is over polluted by the endless smoke emitted daily from second hand vehicle wreckages imported massively.  The luxury of driving shouldn’t be done at the expense of the environment anymore. Public transport doesn’t kill. In developed countries, riding a bicycle is more promoted than using vehicles to save the environment. We can all do it. We can step out our cars and walk or ride bicycles or use public transport. Public transport should use more environmental friendly vehicles such as the use of buses that are biogas driven. From recycled waste, biogas can be generated to produce fuel for public transport vehicles. With recycling working, other benefits can come into the economy. 

Burning of bushes should be ‘criminalised’ if anything to avoid volumes of smoke being emitted into the atmosphere. Why should nature be levied for rats, rabbits and other small meat animals? Eating vegetables hasn’t killed anyone when balanced up. People can eat eggs, beans, and other greens without risking nature in the manner it happens now. 

No one should burn the bush and go unpunished. Those living in areas with a lot grass, forests, and other flammable natural resources need protective measures in place to save those areas from fires. When a fire happens, policies and strategies for replenishing the areas should be put in place. When a forest is gutted by fire, trees should be planted within a short time for ecosystem balance. Even though the replanting will not replace all the lost eco life, it would create a new habitat and support system of life. 

Agriculture policies that support conservation agriculture have to be put in place. Farmers have to shed off old ways of conducting agro-activities. From high to lowest levels of agricultural ladder conservation agriculture has to be adopted and other environmental friendly methods. The use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and others have to be gotten rid of. We have to do whatever it takes to rebuild a world that can sustain today and tomorrow’s future. The use of genetically modified organisms has to be shunned, and embrace organic foods. Consumers have a big role in this sense. We can shun food stuffs produced in environmentally hazard

ous ways in favour of organic ones. We can make industry to comply. We can stand up and be counted in this fight.

Someone can argue that hunger makes people fall for anything. But effects of meeting hunger needs of today shouldn’t be done at the expense of tomorrow’s lives. Many generations will perish if nothing sensibly and practical is done now. Imagine using poison to catch fish because you need a lot of fish today (...) what will happen when you need the fish tomorrow? What will you fish? How will you survive if you carelessly kill the fish and its fingerling? I believe whatever we do, we have to think about tomorrow. 

At policy level, our communication about climate change should be about what policies can we have in place? We have to create a sense of ownership among people in getting around climatic change issues. People have to see platforms where they can dialogue and plan ways of doing something different to save the earth. We have to talk about what industrial policies can be pursued to minimise emission of dangerous pollutants into the environment. We have to speak simple, practical and precise always. Climate change is generally new, few people understand it well. We have to carry everybody along and work together in finding ways of improving things sustainably. 

Communicating Climate Change: Creating a Feeling of Responsibility or Hopelessness?

By Clive Mutame Siachiyako

Climate change sounds a hoax to many people. It sounds a far off problem of humanity. Some people think it is something for another world. It is like some mystery. Some individuals thus feel they have little to do to mitigate or improve its effects on their well-being and the economy. Expert communication on climate change worsens the feeling because experts tend to come out so sophisticated and technical that people get lost in the ballad of technicality of what’s being spoken about concerning climate change and its related aspects. 

Communication (written and orally) is pertinent in life. Biblical recordings indicate that out of communication, the world was made. If you cannot communicate aptly your knowledge is useless to others. It is of no use to them after all they do not understand what you are saying.  When we talk about rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, drought spells, drying water bodies, melting polar ice, etc., what are we communicating to people in terms of what they can do to improve those climatic factors? Can they do anything anyway or they just have to wait for the doomsday when the earth will revolt and shallow everything? Since, the change in the climate did not happen on its own. It has been affected by human activities at varied levels in many sectors of the economy. Therefore, humanity can do something to better things. Today, I will talk about non-policy activities people can do to improve the fast changing climate. I am talking about what a farmer can do, what a rural person can do, what households can do, etc.

Climate change is visible in many areas of life. Shortened rainfall cycle, frequent droughts, melting ice polar, increasing heat, climate induced diseases, etc., are signs of climate change. Wherever we are, whatever we do for a living; we can do a lot to mitigate climate change effects. Firstly, burning bushes or any other smoke generators contribute to the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases that corrode the ozone layer in the process creating a thicket blanket on the ozone. The thicket reduces the amount of sun rays that reach the earth which support various living organisms. Why can we keep the grass throughout the year and save nature? Burning bushes emit huge smoke and make whirlwinds lift dust when the land has no grass to hold on the soil. Most people especially in rural areas burn bushes for wild animals like rabbits, rats and mice. Small animals cost the environment hugely from air pollution to atmospheric damage of the ozone layer. They have long term impacts across vast areas. This is truer in the sense that climate change effects are trans-boundary. They are not limited to locality. A polluted river in the mining town can kill water habitats miles off the mining area.

Cutting of trees also contributes to the destabilization of the environment. Trees contribute oxygen to the environment. But cleared trees over large areas leave bare and land with no source of oxygen. Coupled with the thicket caused by smoke and dust, the effects become more lethal to the environment. Some people cut trees just for funny. Others do it for charcoal burning. Others do it for farming purposes such as chitemene (cut and burn) farming system. Some of the reasons sound genuine and a way of living. But doing so should not be done at the expense of nature and long term life of generations to come. We have to prepare a habitable world for them.

What then should farmers do? Should not they stop cutting trees for farming purposes? How are they going to sustain their livelihood then? Should they care for the future they will not be part of? Some answers lay in conservation agriculture. A number of conservation farming systems have been designed to minimise climatic change effects. Farmers can grow crops without cutting trees. They can maintain soil fertility without getting it from burnt trees or ashes. They can grow crops without tilling the land. They can make composite mature out of chaff and other residues to improve soil fertility. Composite mature has immense value towards the retention of soil fertility. Adopting such farming systems can save a couple of trees. Nature in the process can regain its ability to support life.

The waste [garbage] generated in homes and industry also contributes to environmental degradation in different ways. Some uncollected garbage for example end-up being burnt, buried or carelessly thrown into waterways blocking the flow of water during the rainy season thus causing floods. The burning of garbage sends volumes of smoke into the atmosphere, adding onto the destruction of the ozone layer. Ozone layer disturbance distorts rainfall formation and rainfall patterns. It also contributes to increasing temperatures as atmospheric environment loses its ability to support the earth’s ability to regulate itself: hotness or coldness. Heat thus goes to the extremes. Coldness equally worsens.

What about car drivers, what can they do? Gases emitted from vehicles contribute a great deal of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Carbon taxes can do little to reverse the impacts. Can the economy then do without driving? How will commerce and trade take place without mobility? Saving nature from climate change effects doesn’t mean throwing away economic aspects. It means trying to balance it with nature protection. The introduction of biogas, hybrid cars and removal of wrecked vehicles from the road is among some strategies being put in place to reduce gas emissions from vehicles. The effects of these gases are not immediately, thus humans tend to feel it’s a hoax telling them to take care of nature in any way possible. But changing rainfall patterns, warming up of the earth than before, reduction in rainfall spans, disease burdens, etc., are very visible signs that something is not well in the environment. People cannot bury their heads in the sand and pretend all is well. There is a lot each one can do to protect nature both at large and small scale.

What then should climate change communication do? Communication is meant to share information and build a quantum of knowledge useful for humanity’s well-being. Climate change messages should be made simple, practical, precise, understandable and make people see where they can apply themselves to save nature. Communicating in a manner that creates hopelessness worsens things. It makes people feel valueless to the situation. They feel they cannot do anything; they can only wait for nature to revolt and swallow humanity. The communication has to inspire people and give them a sense of ownership is changing things.

Experts have to break the jargon into simple and everyday activities people do. When we talk about ozone layer destruction, what can different actors do to protect it? Knowledge is power. But confused knowledge with technicality is of little value. It is like knowledge in a closed book; a book no one reads to benefit from it. Climate change experts have to rise about the trap of jargon and talking to themselves as well as creating fear among people.

Communication around climate change has to break the complexity and technical laden information. It has to show people relationships of what they do and its effects on the environment. Those connections should be used as entry points into pro-environmental behaviours. The communication should become a mirror to different actors to reflect their social, economic and other activities vis-a-vis climate change effects. Just disseminating information for the sake of doing is of little importance. It creates an impression that no one knows anything about climate change or what to do to address it in any way possible. “We can only communicate what we know.” When we fail to do it well, we are not giving hope to anyone. We have to create communicate with a difference. We have to make people appreciate our knowledge in terms of their daily lives.

In the next article, I will talk about policy issues that can be considered to save nature.