I have to admit that if I weren’t getting extra credit for going to see Amy Goodman speak, I wouldn’t have gone. And when I realized that she wasn’t even attending the event herself, her speech was pre-recorded from New York, I felt like this was a huge waste of my time. Why should I be here if the keynote speaker isn’t even here, herself?
Well, my frustration was quickly shot down and I felt guilty about those thoughts real quickly. Amy said that, first of all, she was busy being a successful climate change activist (understandable), and secondly, she didn’t use any fossil fuel to get here. She touched on how amazing it is that she can connect so personally with the people in this small town of Eugene from New York City, almost 3,000 miles away.
Anyway, she began to speak about the extreme weather conditions in the North East and how much media coverage it’s receiving. Which is great for promoting climate change, except for the fact that no one is mentioning climate change. The mass amounts of snow in New York, Massachusetts, etc. is the topic of countless conversations around the nation, and even the globe, but they aren’t leading to any solutions or call for reform. All it takes is for someone in the media to show the science of how humans are affecting these weather conditions and it will facilitate numerous necessary climate change conversations.
In juxtaposition, she mentioned Eric Garner and his story. The details of this incident found itself in conversations all over the nation, led to protests, and even more conversations about racial discrimination, police brutality, etc. The power of sharing is the most tangible that its ever been through the use of social media and we, as free-speaking American citizens, are taking advantage of it. Activists for all areas of change are getting their voices heard more and more often because of the easy ability to share opinions so freely.
Amy shared more stories of how one person shared their story and it continually got attention. She mentioned the word grassroots multiple times. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defined grassroots as: being, originating, or operating in or at the grass roots. Yeah, the definition kind of vague, but also extremely straightforward. The grass is literally where things start, so when Amy says that these social issues, such as climate change, need grassroot attention, she means us. Because, ultimately, climate change will affect us, all of us. We are the generation and the people who are able to share so much and who take advantage of that sharing.
So, while she opened my eyes to the effects of climate change, I left her speech inspired to use my voice. I could use it to share my love for The Bachelor’s Ashley S. and her onion farm. OR I could use my voice to start conversations about important topics. Not to discredit Ashley S., but if climate change doesn’t get resolved, she won’t even have an onion farm.
I found your post to be quite interesting since I did not attend the lecture, so I didn’t know what it was about. I do agree with what she said about how the media coverage on the weather conditions in the East is great for promoting climate change except they aren’t mentioning climate change, which is actually really interesting because that is why they are having these extreme weather conditions. It kind of makes me wonder why they aren’t saying that on the media because they should be informing the public of the reasoning for these extreme weather conditions.
Amy mentioned an interaction between two news anchors that she saw: One said, “I feel like I’ve been reporting this every day, now.” The other said, “What more is there to say?” She was furious at this interaction because the news anchors are focused on how the snow is affecting people, rather than why the snow is happening. She’d like to see meteorologists present in the media sharing their findings and starting the conversation that these extreme conditions are certainly caused by climate change.
I love this idea of “using our voices” to bring about the change in the world that we want to see happen. Thank you for posting this. Per the points above about meteorologists, here are two articles about that, one infuriating, one hopeful:
1. Canada literally bans meteorologists/weather reporters from talking about climate change: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646897/Canada-bans-government-meteorologists-talking-climate-change.html
2. A weather reporter in South Carolina pilots a new program to get weather reporters talking about, and teaching people about, climate change: http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/the_newest_tool_in_teaching_ab.php
Thanks for the links!
I went to the conference and I thought the same thing about why is this important. After her message I didn’t want to listen to the media anymore. I feel like a lot of people trust the media and don’t know the truth about climate change and are being told lies. That is so true about how we are the generation that is going to be affected by climate change. That is a really scary thought because no one knows what is actually going to happen.
I’m glad that you agree with the message from Amy, but I disagree with your statement that the media tells lies about climate change. Of course I can’t fact check every media source and I’m sure that there are some outlets that tell lies, but I do not believe that is their intent. In today’s society, media outlets’ goal is to gain viewers and interest those viewers. They display information that stimulates conversations that will engage society, therefore they focus more on certain topics rather than some more important topics, such as climate change.
Not that I think your opinion is wrong in any sense, but that is what I see the media’s intent to be rather than explicitly tell lies.
I was unable to attend the conference, but I am glad that someone was able to share there experience with it. Most news media do seem to try to avoid talking about climate change, even though the stories that they talk about seem to extremely emphasize climate change being the cause of the events. Perhaps if the news media were persuaded by more people to speak more about climate change in their news coverages, then more people could be better informed about the situation going on around the world.
I completely agree with you. In my reply to the comment above, I explain that the media’s intent is to give people the stories that they are interested in listening to. If the people relay to the media that they want to hear and talk about climate change, I’m sure that the media would pay attention and broaden the audience to the conversation.