Experts for proactive reporting on country’s growing climate vulnerability

Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The experts at the conclusion of a two-day media training workshop on Thursday called for facts based and proactive environmental reporting of the issues related to country’s growing environmental vulnerability and recurrence of natural disasters.
The Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) organised the two-day media training workshop on “Climate Extremes with Emphasis on Health Impacts” in collaboration with the NIH, PAMI and Environmental Journalists Association (EJA).
At the conclusion, Head of Agriculture and Coordination, GCISC Dr Arif Goheer said Climate Change itself was a very vast issue which was taken as a leftover agenda in the media as it was mostly dominated by political news.
“The message through effective and fact based environmental journalism has to be made forceful by journalists to replace political agenda. I demand all participants to utilise the knowledge acquired from this workshop for nation building and human good,” he said.
During the second day, three technical sessions were held on diverse topics including forecasting of monsoon, weather and climate forecasting and projection in Brazil and media broadcasting, science communication for media in USA, communication of glacier changes in Pakistan, heatwave and adaptation strategies, infodemic of climate change and health, role of media in highlighting climate change impacts on human health, and media reporting on correct use of terminologies.
The experts hailing from government departments, academia, private sector and media presented their detailed analysis on various topics of discussion which was followed by an extensive question and answer session.
Chairperson Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB), Rina Saeed Khan in her vote of thanks said that climate change was an existential threat to mankind whereas the environmental damage once crossed the threshold would be irreversible.
She added that the media should have interaction with scientists to write good fact based stories and to understand the nature of environmental issues and their dangerous impacts on the ecology.