By Blessing Manale
ON OCTOBER 19, 1977, scores of journalists and black consciousness leaders were detained and banned by the apartheid regime in an attempt to silence those exposing atrocities. This day was called Black Wednesday and commemorated on October 19 as a reminder that the media freedom revered today was hard won.
The day is now marked as an important platform for discussions on media freedom and the extent to which media freedom improved from all those years ago. The right to press freedom and freedom of expression is an important cornerstone of democracy – it is a necessary ingredient for our development, empowerment and for climate justice.
More than 20 years later in 2019 the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (Copac), based at Wits University, staged a protest outside the offices Arena Holdings, then Tiso Blackstar, the Press Council and South African national Editors Forum to highlight the importance of climate change and the need for a much stronger emphasis from the media on this critical topic. Copac pointed to the fact that Climate change is one of the most – if not the most – a significant challenge in our world today.
The Copac protest coincided with an orchestrated flood of climate misinformation aimed eroding public support for solving the climate crisis and in South Africa the energy crisis.
This misinformation campaign, executed on social media, with misleading narratives questioning the causes and impacts of climate change — and the effectiveness of climate smart solutions particularly the scaling up of renewables - underlined by narratives to pursues a line that says we should continue to consume energy as we do.
This year as we mark yet anniversary of Black Wednesday tomorrow, we need to call out on the climate denialists and misinformation provocateurs and together with the media combat these lies — because when our democracy and the bests of our science are brought into question by those with dubious motives, our work to stabilize the climate, protect human health and move our country forward is put at risk.
In South Africa, the topic of climate change for many families has joined politics, load shedding, crime, and the price of petrol in their daily discussions. It therefore means that it has attracted proponent and denialist alike – all going for the soul of everyone who can make an impact and tilt the narrative on the climate debate- but ultimately the energy debate.
While in South Africa, atrocities against media freedom and freedom of association experience are rare, journalists and community researchers who cover climate change are finding themselves on the front lines of what has become an economic war issue.
Equally for the media, if you do investigative journalism in the climate space, where you’re looking at government or corporations, you will as we have seen recently, be upsetting very powerful interests, you may as well gain the chagrin of those who will cry wolf as label our just transition agenda a second colonisation by the west and worst polluters.
According to Climate Action Against Disinformation, the concepts of Climate disinformation and misinformation refers to deceptive or misleading content that: Undermines the existence or impacts of climate change, the unequivocal human influence on climate change, and the need for corresponding urgent action according to the IPCC scientific consensus and in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement
Through this new manipulation of media freedom, climate solutions become contested and obscured - making it harder for citizens and scientists to make their case, and for politicians to be as decisive as they should be. Left uncontested climate disinformation is a new frontier and a threat to freedom of the press and expression.
Recent studies show these tactics work. The latest UN IPCC report was the first ever to call out climate disinformation, stating that a “deliberate undermining of science” was contributing to “misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”
Renewable energy and the Just Transition are a clear targets of these campaigns, which seek undermine consensus and sow division amounts communities and workers. In the past, similar tactics were pursued by tobacco, pharmaceutical and even military and security corporations to hide visible findings linking their products and operations to deteriorating health, social strive and corruption.
The beneficiaries of a prolonged dependency on fossil fuel will continue using every trick in the book by generating and amplifying lies and dominating conversations. But taking down lies is only the battle; the war will be won by raising awareness and mainstreaming climate change in the newsroom.
As the media and society, scientists and “experts, we must speak truth to power, and do better at holding those intentionally spreading harmful lies to account.”
Blessing Manale is the head of Communications and Outreach, Presidential Climate Commission (PCC).
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