Media

Studies
Assignment 2
Group 4 (Athira ,Priya, Kaushik, Siddharth,swetha and Vijay )
Climate Change : The biggest chal-
lange of our time
Bibliography:
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/climate-activism-surges-fast-fashion-brands-hm-zara/sto-
ry?id=65978734
https://www.wwf.org.uk/learn/effects-of/climate-change#:~:text=Climate%20change%20
is%20 having%20serious,resource%20for%20farming%20and%20industry
http://www.globalcitizen.org/
http://www.weforum.org/
Research papers:
ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN CLIMATE CHANGE AND
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT by Dr. Y Prabhanjan Yadav
Illustrations:
kaylamitchell.art/
Pablo Ruiz T.(Behance.com)
Grace Fussell(envatotuts)

Group details and credits :

Priya :- Introduction , How and why

Swetha :- Fashion Industry
Athira :- Action taken by brands and movements
Vijay :- Role of media
Pictures :- Kaushik and Vijay
Layout And Graphics:- Siddharth
Analysis Quotations :- Siddharth
Infographics :- Siddharth and vijay
 g
Climate
Chan g e
g
The BIGGEST
challange of our time
“We are the first generation to feel
the effect of climate change and the
last generation who can do something
about it.”
Barack Obama, Former US President

INTRODUCTION
Climate change is periodic modification of
Earth’s climate brought about as a result of
changes in the atmosphere as well as inter-
actions between the atmosphere and various
other geologic, chemical, biological, and
geographic factors within the Earth system.
From our well-being to our wallets, we’re
seeing the effects of a world transformed by
rising temperatures and changing climate
patterns. When we pollute the atmosphere
by using dirty energy sources like oil, coal,
and gas, we end up with dirty weather. Cli-
mate change affects weather, in large part,
by intensifying the water cycle. In short, water
evaporates into the atmosphere from both
land and sea and returns to Earth’s surface
in the form of rain and snow. As the world
warms, the rate of evaporation from our
oceans seems to be increasing, powering
ever-stronger storms. Climate change pos-
es a huge threat to something humans need

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above all else – water. We need it for drinking,
of course, but also for growing food. Everyone
deserves access to water for their survival. And
climate change is making our water supply much
less secure. Farmers around the world depend on
a stable climate to grow their crops and put food
on our plates. But as climate change leads to more
droughts, floods, and extreme weather, we see
harvests wither or wash away. Climate change is
the most serious issue because in order to solve all
the other issues we need to survive and for that we
need to have a healthy planet.
How and why is it happening
Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human
activities, especially emissions of heat-trapping
greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion,
deforestation, and land-use change, are primarily
responsible for the climate changes observed in
the industrial era, especially over the last six de-
cades. The atmospheric concentration of carbon
dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused
warming, has increased by about 40% over the
industrial era. This change has intensified the
natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in
global surface temperatures and other widespread
changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented
in the history of modern civilization.
We’re seeing the dire consequences climate
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change can have on our water supplies right now
in places like Cape Town, South Africa. We know
that increasing global temperatures can lead to
droughts, and Cape Town has been experiencing
record drought for years – getting only about half
of its average annual rainfall since 2015. Many
cities around the world could face a similar fate.
The largest reservoir in the US – Lake Mead –
contained less than half the amount of water in
2015 as it did in 2000. In 2011, during Mexico’s
worst-ever drought on record, more than 2 mil-
lion acres of crops were lost. Climate change also
makes soil less suitable for farming, as nutrients
key to plant growth are stripped out by these same
droughts and floods.
Fashion industry’s Impact on the Environ-
ment
The Fashion industry, especially fast fashion has
grown swiftly in the past couple of decades. Even-
though this makes our clothes more affordable
and makes “trendy fashion” accessible to a large
number of people, it also adversely affects our
environment. Our environment has steadily deteri-
orated with the rising fast fashion industry, which is
the second most polluting industry in the world.
The industry produces 10% of the global carbon
emissions and is the second-largest consumer of
water globally, and is one of the root causes of
climate change.
Studies show that garment production has almost
quadrupled since 2000, people buy 60% more
garments now, and 85% of textiles go into landfills
each year. (Source: WEF)
The process of washing textiles and garments
also pollutes our water bodies, by releasing upto
500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each
year.
A 2017 report from the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that 35%
of all micro-plastics in the ocean came from the
laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester. Apart
from micro-plastics, the dyeing process of the
textile industry is the second largest water polluter,
since the leftover water is most frequently dumped
into local streams and rivers. The fashion industry
is responsible for 20% of all industrial water pollu-
tion in the world in total.
The role of media is covering climate
change
Global warming and climate change are the hot
and prioritized topics in the global mass media.
Both the Governments and the people depend on
Communication and Mass Media not only for dis-
seminating information, but also in setting agenda
for the development and other allied activities.
If media attempts to educate the masses on such vi-
tal issues, at least, the intelligent and right-thinking
people will become aware about the need to take
the precautionary measures and they get sensi-
tized towards the natural resource conservation
and protection.
Media acts as a catalyst in enlightening the masses
on issues related to climate change. A few issues,
on which global media reporting widely are glob-
al warming, green peace movement, depletion of
ozone layer, climate change, green house gases
effect, acid rain etc.
At the national level, a section of the media has
drawn our attention on several environmental
issues like Ganga River Action Plan, Chipko Move-
ment, Narmada Bachavo Andolan and Appiko
Movement.
So, Media must be trained and imparted skills,
crafts and professionalism to be self-restraint and
to accurately and intelligibly to report on environ-
mental challenges. Such communicators educate,
warn, inform, and empower people to take steps
to protect themselves from natural hazards.
Print Media, Electronic Media, Folk Media,
Ham /Amateur Radio, Smart-phones, Web-
sites can be effectively used in this regard.
Media plays a vital role in educating and enlight-
ening the people and the governments to protect
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and preserve natural resources in the interests of
future generations and the climatic chaos. Sus-
tainable Development is attained by protecting the
environment in a judicious use of natural resourc-
es. Countries both the rich and the poor have an
equal stake in this stewardship of the earth. The
very survival of our planet depends upon it.
In this regard media plays a pivotal role in creat-
ing awareness and bringing the positive behavior-
al change among people in mitigating the anthro-
pogenic climate change. Hence, the role of Media
is immense in Climate Change.
2014 organized by the People’s climate movement
to advocate global action against climate change.
This movement gained popularity through an ar-
ticle published in the “Rolling Stone” website and
later in their print edition and had about 3,11,000
participants. Peaceful protests led by Fridays for
future, Extinction rebellion has gained attention
and praise globally and have urged governments
to take actions.
Climate activism started many decades ago but
we have seen a huge breakthrough in the recent
years. The digital effort during the pandemic is the
latest innovation in such movements.
water.
Levi’s is also committed to sustainability through
their design and manufacturing process including
working towards 100% sustainable sourced cotton
and recycling old jeans.
Conclusion
An American proverb states “We do not inherit the
earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.”, Its needless to say that how severe the
climate change situation is and we have already
started paying repercussion in the form of natural
calamities ,disruption of biodiversity various chron-
ic diseases and in many more forms.
Yet we still stand a chance for preserving our
planet and it can be only done after consciously
understating the severity of situation and by taking
stringent steps so that we have home called planet
earth for many more future generation to come .
As Emmanuel Macron states
“By polluting the oceans, not mitigating
CO2 emissions and destroying our biodi-
versity, we are killing our planet. Let us
face it, there is no planet B.”

What changes have happened due to these

movements The Actions taken by brands
Ever since activists like Greta Thunberg called out
fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara for being
biggest contributors to carbon emissions, there is
a heightened awareness among the people. This
has led to other activists protesting what they call
harmful fashion industry practices such as un-
sustainable materials or fabrics and toxic dyes.
Following these fast fashion brands like Zara and
H&M are changing their practices.

Zara have pledged to use 100% sustainable fabrics

Important movements
In the recent years we saw a number of social
movements calling for climate actions and climate
justice and those movements getting support from
all over the world. The increased use of social
media has contributed to this. One example is
Greta Thunberg, who made such a great leap from
one-person protest to addressing the United Na-
tions and World economic forum in a very short
span of time. There is also a branch of climate
striking, The Climate Strike Online Movement,
often referred to as “digital strike” that was creat-
ed in order to make climate activism accessible to
those who are unable to physically strike. Another
notable movement is the People’s climate march of
by 2025. H&M is also slowly moving away from
their fast fashion roots with the conscious collection
made of organic cotton and recycled polyester.
In-order to promote using sustainable garments
they have also allow customers to recycle their un-
wanted garment at their store and get a discount
for their future purchase. By using more sustain-
able production methods and Eco-friendly fabrics
they are hoping to lessen the impact they have
made on the environment. Another brand that has “The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for.”
taken actions to protect the environment is Levi’s.
Denim requires a very large amount of water for -Ernest Hemingway
producing a pair of jeans. But the new collection,
Water less, launched by Levi’s uses up to 96% less

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