Keyword: COP 17

Herman Wasserman: SA Media's Coverage of Climate Change Not Quite Commensurate with Scale of Crisis

Video Prof. Herman Wasserman, Deputy Head of Rhodes University's School of Journalism and Media Studies argued that the South African media's coverage of climate change is not quite commensurate with the scale and impact of the crisis. He highlighted three weaknesses in the media's reporting on climate change: 1) The frequency of the coverage. 2) The prominence of the coverage. 3) The tone of the coverage. Prof. Wasserman highlighted these issues at a roundtable discussion,...

William Gumede: Climate Change Is about Bread and Butter Issues

Video Critically acclaimed novelist and chairperson of the South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS), William Gumede told delegates at a roundtable discussion on "The Media and Climate Change" that climate change is about bread and butter issues. Gumede chaired the roundtable discussion co-hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office and SACSIS. The discussion sought to ascertain how the South African media is reporting on climate change in the run up to...

Olivier Serrao: What the Friedrich Ebert Foundation is about in South Africa

Video In his opening remarks at a roundtable discussion on "The Media and Climate Change," Olivier Serrao of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) South Africa Office, talked about the work of the foundation in the country. FES is a private cultural, non-profit political institution committed to the ideas and basic values of a social democracy and the labour movement. The foundation's mission internationally is to promote democracy and social justice through capacity building, policy...

Fazila Farouk: The Poor are Disproportionately Affected by Climate Change

Video Fazila Farouk, executive director of The South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS) opened the SACSIS/Friedrich Ebert Stiftung roundtable discussion on "The Media and Climate Change." The event sought to examine how the South African media is reporting on climate change in the run up to COP17, the United Nations climate conference taking place in Durban from 28 November  to 9 December 2011. SACSIS has an interest in how the media reports on critical development...

The Bad Host: Africa's Biggest Polluter Hosting Cop17

Picture: www.skoolmasti.webs.com Glenn Ashton - If we had to choose a country to host the COP17 international climate change negotiations and broker a consensus deal to manage the increasingly urgent matter of human induced climate change, we could not do much worse than choose South Africa. It is not that South Africa won’t be a gracious host. This is a nation renowned for its hospitality and its open, welcoming nature, across all cultures in this multifaceted society. South Africans are certainly excellent negotiators as well....

Seven Billion People and Their Carbon Emissions: What's the Correlation?

Picture: climate Action Group Saliem Fakir - Environmental debates never escape the proverbial slip of the tongue about the planet having too many people. This debate may have some relevance, but high carbon emissions and population size tend to be lumped together in simplistic ways, which do not clearly demonstrate the true relationship between population size and carbon emissions. This past Monday, October 31, a new historical moment was reached: the world population became home to seven billion people. By 2025 it is expected the...