Tag: crisis

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A Summer of Climate Catastrophes has forever changed my Position on Climate Change

Graphic by Carleen Loney/ The Concordian @shloneys

A tale of two climate crises and how the effects of climate change differs across the world.

The first time I experienced temperatures above forty degrees Celsius was in July while I was representing Concordia at the Thessaloniki International Media Summer Academy in Greece. The second was two weeks ago after a heatwave in Montreal and parts of Quebec caused the city to experience record-high temperatures.

When I look back on this past summer, it seems that every significant experience that I had was somehow underscored by climate catastrophes. Whether it was going to the park while Montreal had the worst air quality in the world or exploring the CJ building as it flooded, it’s a stark reminder that the climate crisis is a part of our new reality.

Before this summer, my views on climate change could be summarised by the phrase “optimistic ignorance.” Don’t get me wrong, I knew that climate change was a major challenge facing humanity and would require tremendous social action to combat its worst of its ramifications. And yet, I still believed that the dire warnings of climate scientists espoused of dead zones and societal collapse would not come to pass.

The cognitive dissonance required to hold these two positions simultaneously could only come through my privilege and background. Experiencing the effects of climate change in two vastly different countries has provided me with a unique understanding of how our collective understanding of the climate crisis reflects our circumstances. 

In Quebec, the public’s response to record high temperatures was to demand for the provincial government to service all public schools with air conditioning. Meanwhile, in Greece, I watched as the people were forced to adapt their lifestyles to deal with the heat. Businesses and social services would close during the highest heat of the midday sun.

The most startling example of this occurred when I was in Athens during the peak of July’s heatwave. As I walked down the street, my self-centred concerns, anxieties, and frustrations regarding the temperatures were quickly humbled when I came across a refugee struggling to find shade in the city. Beside her was a young girl, barely over the age of 10, wearing a pitch black robe lying in the middle of the street, too weak to sit up. 

It was the first interaction I had with displaced peoples. It’s a scene that still haunts me to this day, a reality that most of us in the Global North will be sheltered from. A reality that has permanently altered my relationship to the climate crisis.

Despite my newfound perception of the climate crisis, I refuse to partake in climate nihilism, or the mindset that nothing can or will be done to address the current crisis. It’s infuriating to witness those in the Global North, who enjoy the advantages of our modern world while being shielded from the repercussions of their actions, readily accepting defeat.

It’s up to us to engage in the hard work that is needed to bring social and infrastructure reform to mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis and embrace the sacrifices to our personal lives that will come with said changes. At the very least, we owe it to those who are the most affected to not give up.

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Concordia student trapped in Afghanistan, forced to delay studies

Due to the Taliban takeover in August, one Afghan student is unable to leave the country

Arzou*, a 19-year-old Afghan student, was set to begin her first year at Concordia this fall studying political science and economics. However, following the Taliban’s military invasion of Kabul, the nation’s capital, Arzou could not flee Afghanistan and had to set her university education aside.

Since May 2021, the terrorist group has made military advancements in over 200 districts of Afghanistan and took full control of Kabul on Aug. 15. This conquest put an end to the 20-year war between the Taliban and the United States, as the former President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, escaped the country and the U.S.-backed government collapsed.

The Kabul airport became the last source of hope for both Afghan citizens and foreign nationals, who desperately tried to escape the country before the airport was shut down. In an exclusive interview with The Concordian, Arzou shared her memories of the day she will never forget.

“Everyone was rushing to the airport, including those without a passport or a visa. The traffic was incredibly bad. I saw with my own eyes how the Taliban was celebrating on the streets and preventing civilians from reaching the airport. […] They were being very violent towards everyone, even the women and children.”

On Aug. 27, over 100 civilians and U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing outside the airport, for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility. Earlier that month, locals were also seen holding onto a U.S. Air Force plane during take-off as panic erupted on the runway.

As of now, there are no passenger flights to the outside world from the Kabul airport, making it a dead end for Afghans who are trying to escape. Due to the Taliban’s iron grip on the airstrip, only domestic and humanitarian aid flights are currently permitted.

“It was the reason that I couldn’t attend Concordia this fall, sadly. I was very excited to start a new chapter of my life,” said Arzou.

The student explained that her rights are at serious risk in Afghanistan, as the Taliban announced it would only grant women rights “within the limits of Islam,” based on the group’s own interpretation of Islamic law.

At Kabul University, female students were told they are no longer allowed to leave their residence without a male guardian. Meanwhile, women’s beauty salons in the capital have been vandalized with spray paint, in order to cover the models’ faces on storefronts.

“Women are forced to wear the chadari, which covers the woman’s entire body from head to toe with a slight opening in the eye region — something I would call a prison cell,” said Arzou.

She added, “I don’t want my many years of education to go to waste. I don’t even want to believe that the Taliban had taken control of my homeland — I remember all the stories from my parents who went through similar terror in Kabul 20 years ago.”

On Sept. 7, one week after the last American troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Taliban announced its new government — led by Mohammad Hasan Akhund, a former influential figure in the Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001.

The new, all-male government has already disbanded the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and instead founded the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to enforce Islamic law. These actions have crossed the “fundamental red line” outlined by the UN Human Rights Council at the Geneva emergency meeting:

“[This line] will be the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls, and respect for their rights to liberty, freedom of movement, education, self-expression and employment, guided by international human rights norms,” stated UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Aug. 24.

The current state of Afghanistan has left Arzou angry not only at the Taliban regime, but also at the United States for its past actions. For instance, in an effort to negotiate peace talks between the former Afghan government and the Taliban, the Trump administration agreed to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners in 2020.

“[This controversial decision] helped the Taliban start this extreme violence. The U.S. literally exploited our land and used our natural resources, and now left the country in this state,” Arzou exclaimed.

Nevertheless, Afghan women are actively protesting against the Taliban regime on the streets of Kabul, in pursuit of freedom, equality, and fair representation in the government. Despite the Taliban’s use of metal batons and whips against the demonstrators, such protests show no signs of slowing down.

“They aren’t the same women they were 20 years ago,” Arzou explained, “and we just won’t give up on our goals. I am hopeful that one day, I’ll also contribute to rebuilding my country.”

If circumstances allow, Arzou hopes to begin her studies at Concordia University in the winter semester of 2022.

*to protect the subject’s identity, we are using her preferred pseudonym.

 

Graphic by Madeline Schmidt.

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Opinions

How can we save journalism?

Journalism is facing a crisis on many fronts.

The business model based on advertising revenues is no longer sustainable and journalism layoffs are at their highest level since the last recession. Some political leaders are in a campaign against the mainstream media and social media algorithms are taking on the role of gatekeepers, deciding what kind of content people are exposed to. Recently, the spread of fake news gained momentum, and public trust in media has been declining ever since. But aren’t journalists also responsible for the shrinking trust in traditional media?

The arrival of social media democratized the access to and production of information, making people connect to each other more easily. Instead of getting closer to communities from the beginning, journalists just watched, believing they would still be the only ones responsible for disseminating high-quality information. Which did not happen— people relied on YouTubers and bloggers to get their news. Now, to regain the audience’s trust, journalists should find ways to reconnect with them.

The bad news is that audiences seem not to care about news anymore. According to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report, almost a third of people (32 per cent) worldwide responded they “often or sometimes actively avoid the news,” including 41 per cent in the United States and 29 per cent in Canada. The report added that people run away from news because “it has a negative effect on their mood” (58 per cent) or because they feel “powerless to change events.”

At the same time, new technologies have brought enormous development and made it easier to produce and spread false stories. Although fake news is not a new phenomenon, they have gained more strength in a globalized world because of its speed, spread, and power.

Oxford research indicates that the production of fake news is associated with the origin of print media in 1439. At that time, there were already conspiracy theories about sea monsters and witches, or claims that sinners were responsible for natural disasters.

Today, however, fake news is spread in a much larger way. According to a Freedom of the Net report, the algorithms of Facebook, Google, and Twitter tend to promote viral or provocative articles that generate clicks, regardless of the veracity of their content. In effect, a BuzzFeed News analysis showed how false stories outperformed true stories from “traditional” media outlets on Facebook during the last US election.

Social media algorithms are taking the role as “gatekeepers,” a duty journalists once had pretty much to themselves—the only problem is that they can leave people to access false information. Despite some efforts, social media companies are still not fully engaged in combating the spread of disinformation on the internet—and I am not sure if they will anytime soon.

Besides, we see political efforts to weaken traditional media. Around the world, authoritarian leaders are appropriating the term “fake news” to characterize media coverage they do not like, which reduces the trust in these newspapers and media outlets. Inspired by Donald Trump, the president of my country, Brazil, the far-right conservative Jair Bolsonaro, often refers to the Brazilian mainstream media companies as “enemies,” moving people away from traditional newspapers and broadcast channels.

It is easy to point fingers at tech companies and political leaders and demand them to take responsibility for the rise of fake stories. But we cannot expect much from them. While they don’t take action to rebuild the trust in journalism, journalists should. Or, at least, it is the only option we have.

Rebuilding trust, however, requires a lot of effort and rethinking of journalistic practices.  Perhaps the idea of objectivity that fit well in traditional journalism for so many years doesn’t make sense in such a complex world. Some claim that journalism should stand for something: to keep the powerful in check, to pursue the truth, to provide context and perspective. “We take journalistic objectivity to be as natural and immutable as the stars, but it’s a relatively short-lived artifact of 20th-century America,” author Antonio García Martínez recently wrote in Wired. We live in an era where events are instantly captured from a dozen angles, allowing multiple interpretations. To think that only one media outlet will produce the “undeniable truth” is a bit naive. People want to read other people’s opinions and discuss them, that’s one reason social media has become so politicized.

It doesn’t mean that journalism is dead and journalists don’t have a role in this new public sphere—they just have to get closer to audiences. Being transparent in reporting, which ranked among the most important factors that influence trust in journalism, according to a Knight Foundation and Gallup poll, can be a starting point. Also, focused listening—a practice where newsrooms try to listen to their underserved or disengaged audiences— has a great potential to create connections.

Stories with personal approaches are also becoming very popular; one reason why podcasts are amassing audiences right now. Freelance journalist Jonah Weiner argues that voices in podcasts convey “warmth, empathy, personality and provide us with company—an antidote to the loneliness of the internet.”

With so many resources to create storytelling, journalism should be seen as a field full of opportunities, not a dying career. A study by The Discourse found that independent, digital media outlets are emerging as a sub-sector of the journalism industry, with the potential to deliver public service journalism in communities using audience-pay models. These outlets use practices of “slow,” engagement and investigative journalism and, as small outlets, they connect with their communities.

The solution to the existential crisis may not be found in technology, but in reconnecting with audiences. It is simpler than we imagine and it is up to us.

Graphic by @sundaeghost

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