On 19 October 2016, I spoke on climate change communications to a group of Asian journalists and other communicators at a workshop organized by Sri Lanka Youth Climate Action Network (SLYCAN). It was held at BMICH, Colombo’s leading conventions venue.
I recalled what I had written in April 2014, “As climate change impacts are felt more widely, the imperative for action is greater than ever. Telling the climate story in accurate and accessible ways should be an essential part of climate response. That response is currently organised around two ‘planks’: mitigation and adaptation. Climate communication can be the ‘third plank’ that strengthens the first two.”
3 broad tips for climate communications – from Nalaka Gunawardene
I argued that we must move away from disaster-driven climate communications of doom and gloom. Instead, focus on climate resilience and practical solutions to achieving it.
We also need to link climate action to what matters most to the average person:
Cheaper energy (economic benefits)
Cleaner air (health benefits)
Staying alive (public safety benefits)
I offered three broad tips for climate communicators and journalists:
Don’t peddle fear: We’ve had enough of doom & gloom! Talk of more than just disasters and destruction.
Look beyond CO2, which is responsible for only about half of global warming. Don’t forget the other half – which includes some shortlived climate pollutants which are easier to tackle such action is less contentious than CO2.
Focus on local level impacts & responses: most people don’t care about UNFCCC or COPs or other acronyms at global level!
Global climate negotiations – good to keep an eye on them, but real stories are elsewhere!
Finally, I shared my own triple-S formula for covering climate related stories:
Informed by credible Science (but not immersed in it!)
Tell authentic and compelling journalistic Stories…
…in Simple (but not simplistic) ways (using a mix of non-technical words, images, infographics, audio, video, interactive media)
Poor venue logistics at BMICH prevented me from sharing the presentation I had prepared. So here it is:
City design, transport planning, air quality and public health may fall under the purview of different government agencies. But in our chaotic cities, these factors come together to create urban nightmares. Solutions also require an integrated approach.
Can we awaken from this sleep-walking before it’s too late?
This is the question I pose – and try to answer — in this week’s Ravaya column, (appearing in issue of 1 Nov 2015).
I quote the transport specialist Professor Amal Kumarage of the University of Moratuwa as saying that the national average speed is already down to 26 km per hour. Within the Colombo district, the average speed is 22 km per hour. The national average speed is projected to drop to 19 km per hour, while the Colombo district figure would drop to 15 km per hour, by 2031.
What are the smart solutions? I highlight the greater emphasis and investment needed in mass transit systems. In particular, I mention solutions such as dedicated bus lanes, bus rapid transit arrangements, congestion charges, and other demand side management options.
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I revisit the aviation vision and accomplishments of the late Ray Wijewardene (1924-2010). Licensed to fly fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and autogyros, he had a colourful flying career spanning half a century. In this time, he designed, built and flew over a dozen light aircraft and kept innovating with design modifications to come up with a low-cost, versatile small plane that can land and take off from many places in Sri Lanka.
News feature written for Ceylon Today newspaper, 19 Oct 2013
Air Pollution causes cancer, confirms WHO
By Nalaka Gunawardene
Air pollution causes cancer, it is now medically confirmed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has just classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans.
Exposure to air pollution can cause cancer in lungs, and also increase the risk of cancer in the bladder, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of WHO, announced this week.
Close to a quarter million people already die every year from lung cancer caused by air pollution, WHO estimates.
In a statement, IARC said: “After thoroughly reviewing the latest available scientific literature, the world’s leading experts convened by the IARC Monographs Programme concluded that there is sufficient evidence that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer (Group 1).”
They also noted a “positive association” with an increased risk of bladder cancer.
Depending on the level of exposure in different parts of the world, the risk was found to be similar to that of breathing in second-hand tobacco smoke.
“The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances,” says Dr Kurt Straif, Head of the IARC Monographs Section that ranks carcinogens. “We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.”
Particulate matter — tiny pieces of solid or liquid matter floating in the air, and a major component of outdoor air pollution– was evaluated separately and was also classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1).
Outdoor air pollution – emitted mostly by transport, thermal power generation, industrial and agricultural activities — is already known to cause a range of respiratory and heart diseases. In Sri Lanka, more than 60% comes from vehicles burning petrol and diesel fuel.
The IARC Monographs Programme, dubbed the “encyclopaedia of carcinogens”, provides an authoritative source of scientific evidence on cancer-causing substances and exposures.
IARC adds substances, mixtures and exposure circumstances to Group 1 only when there is sufficient evidence of cancer-causing ability (carcinogenicity) in humans.
The link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer has long been established but now focus is on other cancer-causing air pollutants. In June 2012, IARC declared that diesel engine fumes can certainly cause cancer, especially lung cancer, and upgraded it to Group 1. Earlier, diesel fumes were in group 2A of probable carcinogens for over two decades.
“Classifying outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans is an important step,” says IARC Director Dr Christopher Wild. “There are effective ways to reduce air pollution and, given the scale of the exposure affecting people worldwide, this report should send a strong signal to the international community to take action without further delay.”
Although the composition of air pollution and levels of exposure can vary dramatically between locations, the conclusions of the IARC Working Group apply to all regions of the world.
Air pollution is a basket term, which covers dozens of individual chemical compounds and particulates. These vary around the world due to differences in the sources of pollution, climate and weather. But IARC now confirms that the mixtures of ambient air pollution “invariably contain specific chemicals known to be carcinogenic to humans”.
It is only in recent years that the true magnitude of the disease burden due to air pollution has been quantified. According to WHO, exposure to ambient fine particles contributed 3.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2010. Much of this was due to heart disease triggered by bad air, but 223 000 deaths were from lung cancer.
More than half of the lung cancer deaths attributable to ambient fine particles are believed to have been in China and other East Asian countries.
In the past, IARC evaluated many individual chemicals and specific mixtures that occur in outdoor air pollution. These included diesel engine exhaust, solvents, metals, and dusts. But this is the first time that experts have classified outdoor air pollution as a cause of cancer.
IARC Monographs are based on the independent review of hundreds of scientific papers from studies worldwide. In this instance, studies analysed the carcinogenicity of various pollutants present in outdoor air pollution, especially particulate matter and transportation-related pollution.
The evaluation was driven by findings from large epidemiological studies that included millions of people living in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. A summary is to be published in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology online on 24 October 2013.
Air Pollution causes cancer, Ceylon Today, 19 Oct 2013
I return to China’s massive environmental woes in my weekend column in Ravaya broadsheet newspaper (in Sinhala).
Last week, we looked at China’s air pollution problems; today, we discuss serious contamination of food and water caused by widespread pollution unchecked by lack of regulation and local level corruption.
We also compare China’s current experience with Japan’s pollution problems in the 1950s and 1960s. The big difference: democratic system in Japan enabled citizens to effective protest industrial excesses, petition courts and force government to enforce strict regulation. Can this happen in China?
My latest column in Ravaya broadsheet newspaper (in Sinhala) looks at China’s air pollution problems that keep getting worse, taking pollutant readings off the charts. Urban air quality in Winter 2012/13 was so bad that Chinese themselves called it ‘Airpolcalypse‘.
Children wear anti pollution masks at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Feb 2013
Last month, NASA released a series of new images that offer an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. The global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new generation weather satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before. Each white dot on the map represents the light of a city, fire, ship at sea, oil well flare or another light source. (Explore at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov)
This week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala) is on what these night lights mean. I talk to astrophysicist Dr Kavan Ratnatunga about understanding Sri Lanka at night as it can be seen from space.
Earth at night 2012 NASA composite satellite image
Despite the recent International Year of Chemistry (2011), chemicals don’t get good press in Sri Lanka. If at all they make it to the news, or become a current affairs topic, that is usually as a bad story: a chemical spill, water contamination or suspected pesticide residues in our food.
All these happen, and we should be concerned. But chemicals are everywhere in our modern lives — reducing drudgery, protecting us from disease and overall improving the quality of life. It’s all a question of balancing risks with benefits. Also discerning what we really need as opposed to what we want.
Focusing on bad news is the media’s typical approach, and demonising science and technology is common in many sections of our print and broadcast media. Such posturing also fits well into the prevailing narrative of the ‘whole world being out to undermine, destabilise and destroy us’. So chemical industries must be part of that ‘conspiracy’, no?
Many of Lanka’s environmental activists don’t allow facts and analysis to get in the way of a good scare story. Uncritical journalists and their editors often peddle their half-baked arguments and conspiracy theories unsupported by any evidence. Very few scientists speak out for science and reason.
So when the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), a moderate advocacy group, invited me to talk to a group of journalists and broadcasters at a media workshop, I welcomed the opportunity.
I based my talk on five scientists each of who took on once-revered chemicals and formidable industry interests, all in the public interest. By showcasing these champions of public science, I wanted to show that there are honest, diligent scientists who engage in evidence-based advocacy. Not all scientists are part of some global conspiracy to poison us…
The five are those who worked tirelessly and left their mark in their discipline, and in how we look at chemical and environmental management: Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964) Alice Hamilton (1869 – 1970) Sherwood Rowland (1927 – 2012) Theo Colborn (1927 – ) Anil Agarwal (1947 – 2002)
I ended by urging journalists to look for credible and moderate scientists who are led by evidence, not conjecture or prejudice. Amplifying their voices is something we in the media are well positioned to do, but don’t do nearly enough.
Presentation to Media workshop on scientific reporting on chemical issues, organised by Centre for Environmental Justice in Colombo, 25 September 2012:
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I look back at the scientific, legal and policy struggles in Sri Lanka that finally god rid of lead additives in petrol (gasoline) in 2002. It is a success story in safeguarding public health and combating environmental pollution that holds valuable lessons in a new challenge that confronts us: how to reduce sulphur content in the diesel distributed in Sri Lanka that currently contains one of the highest sulphur levels in Asia. This is now urgent and important with WHO confirming diesel fumes cause lung causer.
In this week’s Sunday column in Ravaya (22 July 2012, in Sinhala), I discuss the far-reaching public health implications of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s recent assessment that diesel engine fumes do certainly cause cancer, especially lung cancer, in humans.
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 