Climate change - a threat to Zimbabwe stability

For more than a decade I have been writing about climate change and its impact on communities in Zimbabwe with a special emphasis on the effects on rural communities.

And I have realized that is difficult to sell a climate change story to an editor particularly in a country like Zimbabwe where people eat politics, sleep politics and dream politics. But a close look at the country revealed that the major threat to political, economic and social stability of the country in the next decade or so is climate change. More droughts, more floods and climate change induced migration and other extreme climate conditions are set to bring the country on edge.

But even with the threat posed by climate change, politicians, journalists and policy makers seem to ignore the threat. The next devastating civil conflicts in Africa will certainly be about the need to control resources like clean water, food, pastures and other basic necessities not diamonds, gold or oil.

Having spent some time in the USA closely following the climate change debate in that country and interacting with climate change activists like renowned journalists and authors Bill Mckibben, Ross Gelbspan and Chris Shaw, I came to the conclusion that Zimbabwe needs to do more and come with climate change mitigation and adaption programmes.

"It's (climate change) probably the single biggest example of a story we haven't managed to get right. I understood, quickly, that this was the most important story there was in the world," renowned climate change journalist and activist Mckibben was recently quoted in the media as saying.

A close look at the media in Zimbabwe reveals that climate change issues are not receiving deserving coverage in the media even though it is one of the biggest threats to mankind. Save for analytical articles by the Herald's Jeffry Gogo and Newsday's Wisdom Mdzungairi, climate change issues stories are appearing in newspapers, radios and TVs as news in briefs or just as an event when the country has been affected by say- floods or droughts.  It is frustrating that the climate change story is not getting seriousness it deserves. And I have been asking myself whether the time I spent studying climate change journalism was worth it ore or it was all in vain.

From USA journalist,Wen Stephenson who is has committed himself to climate change activism, after leaving a long-time career as a journalist I have learned that the journalists'  "business-as-usual approach" is missing the mark. Climate change is one of the biggest stories of our lives and it should be getting front-page crisis coverage.

As I travelled through various parts of Zimbabwe interviewing various people about failing crops and unpredictable weather patterns I realized that very little is known, especially in rural areas, about climate change. One old man I interviewed for a climate change story in Zimunya area south of the city of Mutare thought the changing weather patterns were a result of angry spirits. Other villagers were baffled when they woke up one June in 2012 to see their crops wiped out by frost.  The villagers admitted that they were observing changes in weather patterns but they could not explain why and they were worried that the biblical apocalyptic end was nigh.

After observing this I realized that one most important thing which was missing was information and knowledge about climate change. Though some newspapers like the Herald and Newsday have carried good stories about climate change people in rural areas have no access to some these newspapers. Due to the usual communication barriers, many rural communities are not receiving information on climate change. And at times climate change stories are packaged in the medium they don't understand and cannot access.

I have also realized the need to rope in school children to spread the climate change message as I was once on a judging panel for a climate change challenge organised by the British Council in 2010. During the judging process I realized that school children from urban schools fully participated in the competition as they had information through various forms of media which are not available in the rural areas.

As a journalist I have realized that we're all sleep walking off the edge of a cliff, and our early-warning system, which is journalism, has largely failed to alert the people to that in ways that matter. And I came to the conclusion that our so-called "objectivity," our "bloodless impartiality" as journalists, are nothing but a convenient excuse for what amounts to an inexcusable failure to tell the most urgent truth we have ever faced.