Media Storm - S2E5 Climate frontlines: The truth about Big Oil - with Thimali Kodikara

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Warning: References to stillbirth WATCH MEDIA STORM’S DEBUT LIVE RECORDING AT KING’S PLACE, 17/09, 7PM: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/media-storm/ Scorching heatwaves and ‘red weather warnings’ have brought climate change onto our doorstep and into our headlines. But hidden from view - be it by distance, dense jungles or disinformation - the effects of the eco-disaster have already taken hold. This week, we hear from communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. The king of Ogale in Nigeria tells us why his community is taking Shell to court, and villagers along the Niger Delta describe the impact of oil pollution—environmental, cultural and political. Are the companies behind this production guilty of ‘greenwashing’? Is that even legal? And could the media be doing more to hold them to account? Mathilda and Helena discuss all this and more with Thimali Kodikara, the producer of Mothers of Invention podcast. The episode is hosted by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). Guest handles Leigh Day International @leighdayintl Caroline Dennett @GreenGodless Sophie Marjanac @SMarjanacCE, Client Earth @ClientEarth Thimali Kodikara IG: @oneloudbellow, TW: @apathysuckseggs Production Researchers: Isabella Crispino, Mafalda Lorijn, Izzie Addison Fact-checker: Camilla Tiana Sound technician in Nigeria: Okoro Onyekachi Emmanuel @KachiUndiluted, http://www.majinigeria.org/. Music: Samfire @soundofsamfire Producers: Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White Sources Adverts viewed per day: https://www.redcrowmarketing.com/2015/09/10/many-ads-see-one-day/ Global advertising revenue, 2021: https://www.statista.com/topics/990/global-advertising-market/#dossierKeyfigures Saudi Arabia GDP, 2021: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD Guardian advertising revenue: https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2020/jan/29/why-the-guardian-will-no-longer-accept-fossil-fuel-advertising Get in touch Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/mediastormpod or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mediastormpod or Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@mediastormpod like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MediaStormPod send us an email [e-mail] check out our website https://mediastormpodcast.com Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the RBC Avion Visa, you can book any airline, any flight, any time. So start ticking off your travel list. Grand Canyon? Grand. Great barrier reef? Great. Galapagos? Galapagos? Switch and get up to 55,000 avion points that never expire. Your idea of never missing out happens here. Conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash avion. Hey Media Stormers, exciting news.

We're going to be at London Podcast Festival on 18th of September at 7pm at King's Place. We will be live recording two special half-hour episodes. Guests will be revealed soon and the floor will be open to audience participation, so come equipped with your media grievances and then we can all drown them in the bar afterwards. There are limited tickets available, so snap them up now. Go to kingsplace.com.uk. That's MediaStorm at the London Podcast. Festival on Sunday the 18th of September at 7 p.m.

Helena, you manage the Media Storm email account. I do. Thanks for doing that, by the way. Absolutely my pleasure. It actually is, though, because it's actually really nice to read thoughts and feedback from our listeners. Right, and one of the common themes of that inbox is listeners suggesting topics for us to cover. Yes. So if I was to ask you what the most common topic request we've had is, what would that be? That would have to be climate change.

So today, we're talking about anti-vaxxers. What? That might be quite interesting. No, and you're not looking. Yeah? No. No. We're going to talk about climate.

So to Drew, Lucy and Olivia and everyone else who, requested that, this one's for you. And for others writing in, we're working on it, so everyone keep sending your requests to Mediastorm Podcast at gmail.com. The thing with climate change, though, is that Helena and I needed to brainstorm a little bit how to fit it to our brief, which is quite specifically about centering people with lived experience. Right, and lived experience could be quite broadly interpreted when it comes to Mother Earth, given that that technically incorporates everyone on the planet. So we eventually set up. So we eventually set up. on corporate climate messaging as our angle.

Media Storm looks at the imbalance in the media. And when it comes to the climate crisis, massive corporations, whose production often has the biggest environmental and climate impact, also have the biggest voice. Right, whereas communities on the front lines of that production, for example, communities living where oil is drilled

or where mass deforestation is happening, these are often marginalised communities who do not have nearly the same platform. And I'm guessing, if they did have the platform, they may not totally agree with all the eco-friendly claims of corporations working in their regions. One way to find out, provide that platform. This week, media storms heading to Nigeria to speak to villagers from the Niger Delta, where oil is drilled. And I'll see you back in the studio with a very special guest to discuss everything around this media storm. It'll start getting cooler.

You just watch. This is our line in the sand. I am not sure that I'm going to be able to feed my children. They want you to go back to the blim and dark ages. It's frightening nonsense. You don't win any support. Change is not going to come from inside there. That is not leadership.

We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. Welcome to Media Storm, a news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson and I'm Helena Wadia. This week's investigation. Climate Frontlines. The truth about big oil. Go compare. Go compare.

Watch out. Hecks but nettoes. Snickers, get them nets. You're exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 adverts every day. Our information ecosystem is dominated by carefully curated PR messaging. This generated over $800 billion in global advertising revenue last year, pretty much on a par with the GDP of Saudi Arabia. Companies sink millions into carefully crafting their images,

and lately those images have a distinctly green tinge. We know there's an urgent need to tackle climate change. That's why, at Shell, our ambition is to be a net zero-emissions energy business by 2050 or sooner. We hear plenty about the green credentials of the companies that power us. But how often do we hear the negatives? Hello? Hi, Tilda. Hi, it's Lauren. Meet Lauren, a friend of mine from uni, now a solicitor in Nigeria.

She wants to introduce me to a client of hers. Good morning. A king in the Niger Delta who is suing the company shell for damages done to his community over decades of oil extraction. My name is his royal highness. King Godwin, Bebel Pabby. That's me on the phone. I'll switch to my local. How has Shell's oil extraction affected the Agali community?

Well, it's a sweet and sour story. Shell actually came to Ogali in the late 50s. Everybody was happy. We loved them. For us, the children, we love to be around. You know, they live in their caravan, and they have 24 hours light. We use lanterns and candles and firewood. you see these people generating light, it's a wonderful recreation. So those are the experience, wonderful experience. That began to change. We started noticing that some animals

are going extinct. Our vegetation's becoming less value. We are beginning to have strange diseases. That's the sweet and sour story. And why do you think that these changes were happening. I think what happened is that the same quality of pipeline that they laid in the 50s, that same pipeline was still there. We used to see those leakages destroying our streams. Where are the shareholders of the Royal Docheel? Are they not hearing our cries? You know, when we were little, the people of our galley, we grow our crops, we drink the water from the stream, we get our protein the fish from there we get beef from the bushes bush meat

this scenario that I just told you now it's gone forever my children can never tell these stories they don't know about these these roots that I'm talking about these medicinal roots I have five boys and a girl what story would they tell those white men who came here they knew what they were doing they knew they were causing a lot destruction to us. We live in a corrupt world. Shareholders of this royal dust shell, they are living like bourgeois making trillions of pounds and dollars on the blood of a people. You come here to do

business, we receive you with wholeheartedness, you destroy everything about us. And then you pay lawyers, millions of of dollars to save you from taking care of the people you have destroyed. My story is very sad and I don't think anybody is listening or just maybe people don't care. Thank you for painting such an evocative picture. I'm aware that there are also security forces posted in the region to protect the pipeline from sabotage. I'm just wondering whether this increased state presence has affected life and and freedom in your community as well.

Of course, soldiers who are guiding the pipeline, we harass our women, some people are being shot, and they'll say, ah, well, we thought he was trying to go and vandalize the pipe. Just the fear of seeing the soldiers, so many people just remain at home. As the year goes by, Cheryl has become synonymous with the Nigerian leadership. What they do is divide and rule, oppression, and outright brutality. This is worse than the apartheid regime of South Africa. In 1995, nine environmental activists were hanged by the Nigerian government

for their campaigns against Shell. The Agoni Nine were named for the indigenous Agoni people. So when Okpabi was elected king, he turned to a foreign jurisdiction. My name's Matthew Wrenshaw. I'm a partner in Lee Day's International Department, based in London. Lee Day, where Matthew works, is a UK-based human rights law firm. They have taken on Occpabby's case against Shell, and not just Ockpabies. So we're representing two different communities in claims against Shell, two different Nigerian communities, the Bilay community and the Agale community. Both the communities are seeking compensation

from Shell. Crucially, they're asking Shell to clean up the chronic pollution that they've been living with for many, many years now. The case was filed in 2015, is that correct? Yeah. And now it's 2022. What's been happening in the seven years since? When the cases were filed, Shell immediately challenged that the claim should not be heard in the UK courts, that it was a purely Nigerian matter, that Shell's parent company

in London was not legally responsible. And it wasn't until last year when the Supreme Court ruled that there was a very general. a good, arguable case that Shell's head office in London is legally responsible, that the case could properly start proceeding. Given the plight of the claimants, it's pretty devastating for them that it's been seven years with not much action since the case here was filed. First of all, let me again thank the British judicial system. And I speak to the conscience of the shareholders of Royal Dorsh Shell. The profit. they are making from the Niagara Delta is blood money, blood money. I'm speaking from the bottom

of my heart and I'm actually begging them, begging them, begging them, begging them. There is no need dragging my people through the court system. Please, please, please come and sit down with our lawyers and let us talk of how we can remedy this destruction that you have caused my people. Pabby. My final question is, are you optimistic that your community will get the justice you seek? Yes, I'm a Christian, I'm very, very hopeful. I believe we'll win. I want to quickly introduce you to Esther Katty. What you did do? I'm a midwife. A midwife from the Agali community, she has been delivering babies since 1989.

And she wanted to talk to me about the impact of spilled oil on women and women. reproductive health. Most of the women, they are suffering. Right from the time I started this war, women are passing through hard labour. There is a lot of problems, bleeding, and there is a lot of barreness, there is a lot of sickness in the body. I cannot count the number of women. They are delivered children that I just delivered them.

So a lot of them are born and die. They are many like that. How is it that you know these problems? these problems are caused by oil. Because everything have changed. When the oil is not flowing in our galley, there is no sickness. But this time, the farm we are planting, everything we are eating is not good. When we eat those things, it affects our system.

That is why we sick every day. It's getting worse. I'm telling you now, it's getting worse. Matthew. Now that Lee Day has secured the UK as the place of jurisdiction for the case against Shell, what comes next? There's a hearing at the start of next year that will set the timetable for the claim. So we're hopeful that 2024, potentially there could be a trial in these claims. So until then, is it just a waiting game for the claimants? Or is there anything that can be done? For the claimants, I think it's raising awareness of this.

It's an appalling environmental situation. And Shell have known about the pollution in these communities for 10 years or more and have done nothing about it. And also, it's not just these two communities we're representing. Sadly, there are many other communities as well who are impacted in similar ways. Countless communities affected in the region are not on legal roads to justice, but some have tried before.

In 2004, there was an... oil spill from the Transnager pipeline. It caught a light and sparked a fire that burned for days. The mangroves, the economic trees, kill or reptiles. One local businessman, Eric Dew, lost all his ventures to the ashes, a fertile farmland, a bakery, and several deep sea fishing canoes. And he sued Shell for the damages. The trial, heard in the company's native Netherlands, dragged on for 13 years.

do, didn't live to see the outcome. It wasn't easy. This is his son speaking, who shares his father's name and who took up his father's fight. Breaking news from the Netherlands, where the Court of Appeals has awarded the 29th of January, 2021. While the appeal court judges were reading the judgment, the hall where we were sitting, watching and listening via Zoom, was silent like the graveyard. And when it was pronounced, the share was responsible for the jury. destruction of my father's investment the entire hall burst with jubilation I couldn't

control my tears of joy I quickly remembered my late father his last word to me saying Eric be strong don't give up and you will see lights which is fair ruling this victory is for all advocates of good environment victory for the entire Niger data region. Victory for the Oguni people. To God be the glory. Eric, since the ruling, have you seen improvements in Shell's operations to reduce further damage to your community and the environment? It is a laughing matter. Shell has never changed the operational pattern in Oguni. The rate of mortality continues on the rise. I called Shell for their response. A spokesperson wanted us to to report that the Niger Delta was and remains a highly complex operating environment.

And the spills at issue happened in communities that are heavily impacted by oil theft, illegal oil refining and the sabotage of pipelines. The Shell Joint Venture manages these challenges because of its expertise and its operational capabilities in pipeline management, security and oil spill response in the Niger Delta. The quote continues, regardless of the cause, the Shell Joint Venture cleans up and remediates spills from its operations. It also works hard to prevent sabotage spills by using technology, increasing surveillance, and by promoting alternative livelihoods for those who might damage pipelines and equipment. And there was one more thing they wanted to stress. Be in no doubt, the spokesperson said.

We are determined to deliver on our global strategy to be a net zero company by 2050, and thousands of our people are working hard to achieve this, although the world will still need oil and gas for decades to come in sectors that can't be easily decarbonized. But are these lessons materializing? Massive oil slick now covering some 600 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. 2010, one of the biggest oil spells in U.S. history. Shell took action. They contracted a consultancy firm directed by Caroline Dennett

to improve the safety of pipeline operations. In the 11 years that we were running surveys for Shell, we must have interviewed over 20,000 frontline workers and contractors and probably in the order of around a million words of open feedback we have analysed in that time. I would say less than 2% of that open feedback ever mentioned climate change or transition or net zero or any of those things. You know, that was an indicator to me that this isn't real.

You know, all that we're hearing, Shell saying in the public domain, you know, that's not real at the front line. if you want people to come with you, if you want your company to change in a certain direction and to have a certain focus, then you absolutely have to bring your people along with you on that journey. I'm not seeing this in the front line. Yeah, and it's interesting because it's definitely quite a big part of Shell's messaging that they are transitioning to net zero. And what I'm hearing from you, I think, is that within the actual briefings that the staff are being given, within the day-to-day management, it's barely even a feature.

Is that accurate? Yeah, so exactly. I don't even know whether the greenwashing messages are getting to the front line. It's not even like they're trying to convince their own people that that Shell are doing something about it.

They just don't talk about it. It's just business as usual, business as usual, business as usual. Which brings me on to this question of greenwashing, as you said. Do you think from what you've seen of Shell, when you look at their external marketing and their internal culture,

do you think that they are guilty of mis-messaging? Completely and utterly. Do you think then that the company, the industry maybe, is just fundamentally incompatible with the climate transition that the world needs and that they say they're behind in theory? Yeah. I mean, they shouldn't be, right? You know, on paper, they shouldn't be. On paper, they are the companies best equipped to lead that transition. They have the component parts that are required. Capital, technological skills up the wazoo. That isn't a stretch to think that they could lead the way on transition. What they lack is the will to do it. Their entire business model is based on there being stuff. You need to get out of the ground that is really expensive to get out of the ground.

I am massively disappointed that companies like Shell, who were once pioneers and visionaries for how we were going to live, they don't have an alternative vision to take us to the next place, and that's really sad, actually. If it is true, if companies are saying one thing, but doing another, how is that legal? In an environmental or climate context, this is called greenwashing. Greenwashing is where companies or commercial actors produce advertising

that exaggerates the green credentials and green nature of their product. Introducing Sophie Marginac, international climate law expert. Greenwashing is a problem for climate action because it sort of lulls the public into a false sense of security. And greenwashing also distracts policy makers from the reality of the regulation that they need to put in place to actually protect the environment,

apart from the fact that it is fundamentally illegal. If it is illegal, how do so many companies get away with it? Frankly, there's just so much of it that it's really hard for regulators to keep up with. There are so many grey areas. In painting something is green, there really is, it's such a vague concept. So it is a really difficult area to regulate.

Sophie works at Client Earth, an organisation that uses legal routes to pursue climate justice. They've sued BP in the UK. There was one billboard. There was an image of a plane taking off and there was lots of rubbish. It said this plane is fuelled by jet fuel. What BP was really talking about there

was that they had made a $20 million investment in a very small startup company in California that was research, the potential to turn waste into aviation jet fuel. That company had never produced any aviation jet fuel from waste. They were literally just a tiny startup researching this concept, obviously. I mean, they probably paid more for the billboard than they spent on the actual project. Total in France.

They tell people that they are getting to net zero by 2050. And we say that that's false because the company's actually expanding its oil and gas production. and are currently taking the Dutch airline, KLM, to court. What they're saying that they've done is cancel out the emissions from your flight by planting rainforest. Basically, that's scientifically inaccurate. What new laws and regulations would you like to see introduced to better police false advertising in climate and environmental issues?

So like cigarettes, we actually think that fossil fuels, advertising should be banned entirely. We don't see that we have time to waste in really fighting these battles. That money that they're spending, which is millions, by the way, should be spent on researching cleaner technologies and changing their business. The window for meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement is closing rapidly. Fairly soon, if the companies don't actually start to reduce their real absolute emissions, these net zero promises are going to be shown up as a whole load of hot ear. So how do we know what to believe?

Is the mainstream media failing to check the facts, or is it an active accomplice in corporate agendas, and what will it take to create true accountability? That takes us onto part two of the podcast. Thanks for sticking around. Welcome back to the studio, where we discuss how the media reports on marginalized communities and some of the stories making headlines today. This week, we are looking at climate, communities on the front line of environmental damage, the corporations causing that damage and the marketing campaigns that conceal it.

And with us is a very special guest. She is an artist by training and producer by profession, co-host and series producer of the groundbreaking climate podcast mothers of invention. The show explores feminist solutions to climate change and champions the views of unsung heroes from all over the world fighting battles of climate justice. Welcome Thimali Kodikara. Hello ladies. How are you doing? Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. Let's start with the investigation we just heard and see if we can answer any of Matilda's questions. So when it comes to corporate greenwashing, do you think, the mainstream media is failing to hold companies to account. And if so, what should they be doing

differently? I mean, there's absolutely no question. They're not holding corporate media to account yet. That's not to say it's not possible, but definitely fact checking up the wazoo is highly necessary. But then of course, as we know, media has many different objectives, political objectives that come from funding or ownership. And so I think it's very important that we do our own research. You know, we have to sort of follow the science and follow the money a little bit and make sure that those two things are correlating before we even think about why a media perspective is covering corporate action in a particular way.

So I think it is absolutely down to the responsibility of great journalism to do, it, but we can't always be reliant on every source to provide that for us. Yeah, definitely. I think that's something people really need to understand when they're consuming the news is that whether or not they want to be, news outlets are often beholden to corporations because they receive ad revenue from those companies. So even the Guardian, which has actively tried to scale back the funding it's received from large energy corporations and which has a business model that doesn't overall depend on

advertising, it will still say that fossil fuel related investments will still represent a very small fraction of their funds. And in the US organizations, news outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, which might be seen as very, very rigorously investigative and quite progressive on topics such as climate change, they have in-house brand studios that have worked with corporate partners to produce and design content that could definitely be classified as greenwashing over the years. So it's just something that we all need to bear in mind. and remember that these relationships do exist and that news outlets do not exist in a vacuum.

I mean, you took the words out of my mouth, Matilda, because we have to sort of keep a perspective, or journalists and newspapers should also be keeping the perspective of, you know, these fossil fuel companies being guilty until proven innocent. And that's how we start avoiding some greenwashing strategies. Do you have any tips for listeners or any tools that we could use to use?

to check up on the green credentials of companies. It's not a media tip, but I've been working a little bit with a company called Ecosia. And Ecosia is like a, it's like a search engine. Yeah, it's the Google that plants trees, right? Yes, yes, exactly. I was trying to avoid saying the word Google, but you're right, absolutely. It is the Google that plants trees. But also what's interesting is that when you do search something on their platform,

you are planting trees, but they've just added this greenwashing facility where you can see how fossil fuel intensive a company is if you're searching for it. They put in little icons now. So there are like initiatives that are happening from folks who are thinking about climate first, not income first. Great tip. Well, as we learn with all our topics, language is a very powerful and a very political weapon in the media arsenal and climate coverage is absolutely no different. So since 2019, the mainstream media has largely shifted from using the term climate change

to the term the climate crisis. And this followed a massive international campaign and a shift in the vocabulary being used by the UN and the UN spokespeople. Why is that shift in language important? Well, I like the way that you put it, actually, Helen, because it's not necessarily the term, it's more the transition between these two terms that has been so important.

It's helping us recognise that there is urgency. The climate crisis and the way that report it is not the same as talking about any other issue because time is completely critical to the way we discuss it. You know, we are at 1.1 degrees of temperature rise at this point, and we have to stay below 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise. So to be able to help people understand urgency is how we get more and more people on board, for sure.

Can you think of any other vocabulary like that that needs changing on this topic? I think more than vocabulary at this point, it is concept. And for me, that concept is climate justice. It's really astonishing to me that so much reporting is still happening within borders, border frameworks. The climate crisis is a global crisis. It's affecting everybody on planet Earth.

It has been affecting certain communities for entire generations, for hundreds of years at this point. And we're so willing to talk about carbon or animals or... biodiversity, which is all great and all absolutely true and critical that we know about all these things. But we also have to recognise the importance of the justice issues that have had fallout from all of this, the human rights aspect of climate change. And none of that is being reported on nearly as much as it should. Yeah, that's so interesting that you talk about kind of zooming out and looking at the bigger picture because it actually reminds me, I do newsroom training for journalists on

how to report responsibly on domestic abuse. And what is interesting about that is that we ask the same thing. We ask journalists to zoom out and look at the bigger picture in terms of how many women mostly are abused on a daily basis so that the incident that they're reporting on doesn't seem like an isolated incident that's come out of the blue. And it's kind of the same thing. Like we need to zoom out and look at the bigger picture

so that everything that's being reported on is being reported on in the context of a global climate crisis. I really get reminded of when the group Insulate Britain were protesting in the UK. For those of you don't know, Insulate Britain where a group of protesters demanding the government insulate all Britain's homes by 2030, and they blocked roads and they blocked motorways

in protest late last year. And I think nine of the activists were jailed. But the most common words that were used were like chaos and stopping ordinary people going about their lives, nuisances, inconveniences, kind of forgetting the point of what a protest is meant to be an inconvenience, right? But many, many articles when reporting on the activities

of the interlate Britain group failed to actually mention who the group are, what they were calling for, and failed to link to the wider effects of non-insulated homes. So context is so important. And actually, the point you're both making, about how this is a global issue and it needs to constantly be contextualized in a pattern of global crises.

This brings me to a question actually, which is lately we have seen, and this has been seen as a positive development, news organizations introduce climate sections on their website. News organizations hire climate editors and climate correspondence to report specifically on this issue.

And that has pros because it helps to make climate news immediately visible. accessible and it standardizes practice, regularizes practices of climate reporting. But is it also, is there also the case that it could be an excuse to section off climate stories rather than embedding the issue across other news? In other words, are other stories missing the climate context? And I'm going to go to you on this, Imali, but it's something that I think of frequently as

an immigration reporter that a lot of the immigration crises we're seeing reporters, and a lot conflicts happening elsewhere in the world are climate stories but you don't see that context in that news absolutely i'm so so glad you brought up that point because you know i think we are long overdue recognizing that climate is not a subject that belongs to environmentalists and hippies it belongs to every single one of us it needs to be contextualized to our lives the context is the that is totally missing. In my experience, you're going to capture an audience, you know, maybe 5% of an audience on the science, frankly. Like you, most people don't have a visceral, emotional relationship to statistics. People need to feel themselves in this subject because

people only want to save what they can relate to. It's a sad reality, but it's true. That's why the UK is getting on board now is because finally climate issues are happening on people's front doorsteps. You can see it. You can live it. And I feel like that human experience has been so, so missed for so long because that kind of separation of climate from everyday news, it kind of, as you said, frames it as like a scientific phenomenon rather than a human one. You know, before when I thought about climate change, what I thought about most, was those nature documentaries, David Attenborough, melting ice caps and skinny polar bears, which is obviously extremely sad. But I didn't see much of the human cost. Could you just tell us

really, like, what are the main human costs? What are the biggest human costs of climate change that are happening right now? We're talking about people who are having to migrate away from their homes, people who are unable to grow food on their landscapes, people who are developing new diseases through their water systems, people whose homes are literally disappearing into the water. Like these aren't imagined dystopian stories from the future, which is how the UK media has sort of described climate to us as like something. thing that will happen sometime in the distant future. But that's because it was going to happen to the UK later than it has been happening to largely black and brown, indigenous, global

south, Arctic people all over the world. So now we have to start connecting the dots between what's been happening to people far, far away from us, and realizing that by supporting them, we can support ourselves too. Absolutely. I think it's fair to say that downplaying and denying climate change is less prevalent in mainstream news than it used to be. But we do want to talk about climate catastrophizing because on the flip side,

there is an issue of over sensationalising incidents and creating that kind of sense of hopelessness where people think, oh, well, what can I do about this? if the world's going to end, it's going to end. How do we report on the crisis in a way that doesn't sensationalize and that presents it as we've been talking about as a man-made issue with man-made solutions while still emphasizing that urgency

and the scale of devastation? I don't know that I've seen much over sensationalising of the climate crisis, honestly. I think it's deep breath, probably way worse than is being reported. But to your point, what is extremely important is that we stay completely hooked on the facts. We have to give people something to walk towards.

We have to start envisioning a future that, you know, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren can actually thrive in. People need to feel like they can do something, that there is a way out of this. The defeatism either comes out of complete despair and fear or from complete privilege as well to be able to say, well, I don't care there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not going to do anything about it.

I'm checking out of this conversation. In the meanwhile, there are people all over the world who are fighting their arces off to make sure that we all have a safer future available. So let's talk about your podcast now. Let's look away from the mainstream and look at Mothers of Invention. So this is co-hosted by Mary Robinson,

the first female president of Ireland and a former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. I mean, how did you score that? Cash. Yeah. And Maeve Higgins, who is a New York Times opinion writer and a very funny person. The show stands apart in the field of climate communication.

How so? The show was launched with the intention of bringing levity and humour to the conversation because people are terrified by this subject matter. And we laugh a lot. And that is something that women, certainly women of colour, people from marginalised groups, that is historically how we get through real trauma and trials.

And so we really try to capitalise on that and make people who are climate curious come and join the conversation with us and feel like they're set in a safe place. The other part of it is thinking about how to support the mostly women we've had on the show on the back end. So we're trying to help them get together, help them share resources, job opportunities, funding opportunities, and mostly helping them find platforms to be able to talk about their work in an environment where people don't give them platforms or opportunities

is because they are so condescended to. And then on the front end of the pod, I'm trying to figure out ways through the editorial of getting the audience to get their butts off seats to go and do something to actually participate in the climate movement, figuring out lots of different ways that people can continue to learn after the podcast has ended. I feel like we should talk about the tagline of the podcast

because it's very interesting. I'm sure you've chosen it for a very particular reason. but I want to unpack it just a little bit. The slogan is, climate change is a man-made problem with a feminist solution. What made you choose that strapline and why should male listeners not feel alienated by it? Well, I mean, man-made obviously is somewhat tongue-in-cheek

because there are plenty of men that are putting in some effort into the climate movement. But historically, men are people that have fueled extractive capitalism. that brought us to the climate movement. Colonialism is what caused climate change, also fuelled by manpower. So it's sort of an acknowledgement of that. But also on the other side of it,

women are overwhelmingly more vulnerable to the climate crisis than men are. To give an example from the show, we had a guest on called Hindu Umaru Ibrahim, who is a nomadic, indigenous woman from Chad. Chad had a huge lake on it, a massive, massive lake that was, you know, a source of food and a source of water for masses of communities in several countries surrounding it. 90% of that lake has dried up. What that's meant is that the women who tend to

actually be the farmers in the community. Lots of people don't know that, but women are the farmers of the world. Women are often left at home because the men will migrate to the cities have to separate themselves from their cultures to try and make money to get resources to bring home but that means that women are left behind often in extreme temperatures where they're not able to grow food. They're often looking after several children. It's a multi-layered war zone effectively for these women. Women are also often not taught how to swim. They don't know how to drive. They don't know how to escape from vulnerable circumstances, often also wearing traditional clothing that's sort of wrapped around their bodies. They can't run. Certainly my aunt was killed

in a tsunami in Sri Lanka in 2004. And she, this is the situation for her. She was, you know, dressed in a sari in her 70s she couldn't run anywhere she drowned and died sadly um so this is happening to thousands of women all over the world um yeah miserable miserable statement but true yeah no no what that what you just showed is how these systemic inequalities manifest in so many ways that we wouldn't even think about until we hear these these lived experience stories and i guess the point is the same about when it comes to responsibility. The gender distinction is an important one, but it's not pointing to the individual responsibilities

of today's men over today's women. It's saying that this is a patriarchal system. That is the point that's being made by the tagline. Time now for a current affairs crunch. Let's look at some of the recent stories making headlines. We can't not talk about it because the media can't. stop talking about it. The heat wave. In some senses, the heat wave has been a springboard for greater acknowledgement of the climate crisis in our daily news. But have we also seen the return

of both-sidism, also known as this kind of false balance reporting in climate issues, with mainstream news commentators dismissing the abnormal weather as a cause for alarm? For context, let's listen to this now infamous G.B. News clip. I want us to be happy about the weather and every single... I don't know whether something's happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic and harbingers of doom. Because all of the broadcast, particularly on

the BBC, every time I've turned on, anyone's talking about the weather, they're saying that there's going to be tons of fatalities. But haven't we always had hot weather, John? I mean, wasn't the 76, the summer of 76? That was as hot as this, wasn't it? This kind of commentary really echoes all over Twitter. People who live through the heat wave of 1976 have been criticising the doom and gloom climate chat overlaying this one.

What are your thoughts on how the heat wave in the UK has been covered? Positive, negative, somewhere in between? I sort of think that the UK is incredibly far behind on talking about climate. The UK has consistently ignored and talked over. through this like fantastic arrogance. I don't really know how else to put it. And now all of a sudden we're discovering the UK has a great deal to learn from other places in the world. Because the issue really is around how the UK doesn't know it's history. Climate is not a magical science

problem that just showed up. Climate change has happened because of an excessive greed. It's a greed problem. And that greed has been led by a lot of these nations in the global north. And so there's been an aversion to having this conversation for a really long time in a very transparent way. So I think the UK media has a huge task on its hands. But I think there's a lot that can be learnt from international media on how to move forward. I think what you're saying about Britain not knowing its history, but also just having a huge responsibility and just really a huge lack of understanding was so perfectly summed up in the Daily Mail's two front pages from the heat wave. I think it was Tuesday, 19th of July and Wednesday, 20th of July. Tuesday 19th of July read

sunny day, snowflake Britain had a meltdown and it's got, you know, schools close, workers stay home, shop shut, and then they put extreme heat and inverter commas. The front page, the very next day, hottest UK day ever, 40.3 degrees, nightmare of the wildfires and pictures of wildfires that happened in the UK. London's burning, terrified residents fled as their homes went up in flames. From snowflakes to wildfires, that is an alarming 180, even for the daily mail. Oh my God. Like, I'm sure that, that, people who care about climate in the UK are really infuriated by those headlines but I have to say I saw this same thing happen in the US and you've the right now are coming around to talking

about these issues because they know they have to there's no getting around it now and a lot of that has happened because regular people started finding out the facts and they couldn't They couldn't hold this opinion down anymore. I just think it's so illuminating that we can talk readily about climate change when we feel it on our doorstep. Why weren't we having these debates when devastation began elsewhere? Droughts in the Sahel, famine in Sudan, flooding in Bangladesh, none of these held a candle to one day of 40 degrees here in the UK.

We're so driven by what affects us, but that hasn't helped us because if we'd started addressing climate crises elsewhere, as the global issue that they were, maybe we wouldn't be seeing that. today. And I think national introversion has always been a problem in the media. And maybe we need a less localized, less domestic news agenda to help us understand that we all have a stake in this fight. Oh, go on, girl. The Mali Kodikara, thank you so much for joining us as our guest on today's media storm. Where can people follow you? And do you have anything to plug? You should probably listen to my podcast,

Mother's Invention. It's all right. It's an all right pod. I'm really shit at social media. I hate it. But you can find me on Instagram. One loud bellow. And occasionally on Twitter two, apathy sucks eggs is my handle. Because it does. Let's be real. Apathy sucks it. I actually chose that name like two decades ago. My mom's been trying to get me to get rid of it for years. But it still works and makes people laugh. Please feel free to get in contact with me. I don't know. In terms of plugs, I'm going to be speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival on August 24th. So you can have a listen in or come watch me there too. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with a special bonus follow-up episode looking at North American indigenous communities, how they're impacted by climate change and how they may already have the solutions.

And on the next episode of Media Storm, we're talking about sexual health with an investigation into the general. Gender Politics of HPV. If you have relevant experience of this, we'd love to hear from you, so please get in touch. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and review.

It really helps more people discover the podcast, and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal, at Helena Wadia, and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod. Get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover or who you'd like us to speak to. Media Storm, an award-winning podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the ACOS creator network. It is produced by Tom Silinski and Deborah Francis White. The music is by Samfar.