Environment has one of the pivotal objective importance for the human survival on this planet and the changing in the climate and the adverse effects of the unhygienic activities performed in our surrounding could never had been approached to a common man if it wasn’t for electronic and print media.
Media is the fourth pillar of any nation worldwide and its not just in books or just a theory but a universal truth. Environment has one of the pivotal objective importance for the human survival on this planet and the changing in the climate and the adverse effects of the unhygienic activities performed in our surrounding could never had been approached to a common man if it wasn’t for electronic and print media. In this review we will see a glimpse of media’s approach to common man regarding the environmental issues such as global warming especially in Pakistan.
Review Mass media has its vast importance in almost every genera of life. You take lifestyle or news, entertainment or bashing concerns, you name it and media is there. In the recent past the concerns regarding the changing in our habitat has gained a lot of attention as the betterment of our Planet Earth is the basic need for the survival of mankind. Global warming has gained interest in the groups of the concerned individuals of the planet who are interested in the change of our daily life priorities and the damage it is going to do with our planet will be of drastic nature and there’ll be no coming back.
Let’s trace it back to the very beginning of the cause. In 18th century the scientists had observed that the planet is changing its regular patterns of weather ultimately leading to the change of climate. This was an object of clash between different scientists of the world and it still is, as some of them believe that the climate is changing and some of them didn’t believed it and they still debate on this topic with some lame logics.
Eventually the scenario ends up on the result that this is not a concern or matter of debate. It’s real and its happening. Media played its role in the subject of climate and made it a hot topic as without media this couldn’t had possibly gone this far as it is today. TV and Radio channels along with the social media came up with the idea of bringing the environmental awareness to grass root level and make the people realize that the climate change is one of the crucial things happening today.
Programs and documentaries in this perspective got maximum air time possible and the newspapers gave vast importance to this topic. Discussions in this respect had been made on the largest media houses of the world including BBC, CNN and AlJazirah are the main channels using their medium of communication to support and rotate the message throughout the world (Das RC et al,. 1998) . One of the Primary objectives of these media programs is to navigate the changings of the climatic destructions and to let the authorities know about these changing causes.
Let’s take the example of industrial effluents and deforestation in America and japan. The responsible companies and persons are brought in the courts to adjust the scenario and they are fined as well as jailed for this crime and as you know that burning the effluents is a crime, it was came into being after media took severe pain in making it to the tables of authorities. The denouncing of the subsidy to the factories of Japan was also due to media’s stories as they were taking money from the govt.
and were contaminating the environment too. In India several campaign like “outreach campaign in Delhi” and sataymayvijatay campaign in Mumbai were on the credit of Media(Environmental News 2017). In Pakistan In our homeland the hot topic these days is the making of Bhasha dam for the storage of excessive water coming out of the glaciers as a result of the global warming. The water was wells stored in the past but as the temperature of the region is enhanced to a severe scale, the need for the new dam is nonnegotiable.
Pakistan needs money and the word was out to every one due to the concern of media and the nature of the severity was well portrayed by Television and newspaper along with radio channels. People were trying from all over the globe to help Pakistan in this noble cause. One must know that campaign of WWF and Govt. of Pakistan entitled as “Rang do” is thrown to the common man by the help of media and the stars involved in this campaign are also a part of this industry.
This campaign targets the plantation of 0.7 million trees all around Pakistan. The initial step was taken in Changa Manga forest park on 14th of August 2018. The coverage of Pakistan’s media channels made this campaign heroic and people all around the country are trying to let their part invested in this holy cause. The crackdown against timber mafia in KPK is also due to the untired efforts of the local media houses including Khyber news and local/regional newspapers(The NEWS 2018) The campaign of WWF Pakistan and Sui Northern Gas limited to bring “Gasifiers” in the market to eradicate the incomplete burning of fuel bases like wood and make it to complete burning process leaving less carbon contamination in the air and demotivate the deforestation as you can use the residue of the homemade wooden objects and the waste of corn, wheat, sugarcane, maize etc for the combustion and eventually the tilt of deforestation for the gaining of wood for combustion is reduced.
People are taking these efforts seriously and this is the success of the local bodies and media houses as well. Studies have found that those communities who know best about their environmental issues have the maximum potential to coupe along the changes and they don’t have the need for the external assistance as they have their personal potential enhanced because of informed scenarios. The recent reports of the world’s check and balance and the forestation is totally based upon the data of the media industry and the data related to this general adaptability is totally chaotic if it wasn’t for the media’s authenticity.
In short one can say that media has created the basic know how about environment and its consequences on life if it is changed. Let’s put the efforts hand in hand and pray for a perfect country. Hail Pakistan. Hail planet earth.
Muhammad Shadab Abbasi
Department of Zoology, University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan
Corresponding Author’s email [email protected]
