EarthCheck workshop: Professor calls for efforts to reverse climate change
Source: The Sangai Express / Mungchan Zimik

Ukhrul, February 07 2023: Rahul Mahanta, Professor of Cotton College, Guwahati has highlighted the grim situation of the planet and called for concerted efforts to reverse climate change.

The professor was delivering his welcome address at the two-day EarthCheck climate change reporting workshop programme held at Cotton College, Guwahati on February 3 and 4 .

Over 35 journalists from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir and Manipur participated in the training workshop on EarthCheck climate change reporting organised by Bengaluru based Azim Premji University in collaboration with India Spend, Cotton University, Guwahati and Eastmojo.

Rahul Mahanta expressed that the continuous human activities for overall infrastructural development, economic wants and for luxurious lifestyle has impacted the climate cycle significantly causing serious threat to the global environment.

Mohanta urged journalists to write stories on environment issues as wanton human exploitation to land resources has reached its peak.

"If we fail to maintain carbon-dioxide from 1.3�C- 0.2�C level, who knows we may be the last human generation in this mother earth", he opined.

Taking cues from numerous manmade natural disasters that had been witnessed in last 3-4 decades due to various factors, he said that the world is at a threshold point.

If the greenhouse gas results in an increase of upto 1.5�C, then there will inescapable human catastrophic and human beings' survival between 2030-2052 would be at high risk .

There will be widespread changes to earth ecosystem and the nature fury would beyond control, he claimed.

He added that climate scientists and journalists have to work together to disseminate information about the ill effects of climate change.

Rahul Mahanta urged the journalists to act as mediators in the process of mitigation and sensitising the peoples on climate issues.

During the workshop, journalists were educated on how to build data-backed and evidence-based narratives, understand the variability of climate change reporting, and how to differentiate climate misinformation and disinformation.

Various aspects and reasons for climate change in the context of North East India were also deliberated at length by experts and climate scientists.

Journalists were given training in reporting on climate change, data visualization, fact-checking etc.

A host of experts led by Prof Santonu Goswami of Azim Premji University, Prof Rahul Mahanta of Cotton University and Shreya Shah of IndiaSpend along with a diverse faculty from various fields consisting of Govind Ethiraj, Sanjoy Hazarika, Karma Paljor and Sushanta Talukdar were present as resource persons.

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