This recent article in The Economist paints a very grim picture about the future of India and China in the wake of rapid climate change. Although the article is focused on reaching consensus for climate change policies at the international level, some of the facts presented are truly alarming and a grave cause of concern. The Himalayan rivers including the Ganga, Bhramaputra, Indus, and Yangtze support some 1.3 billion people from their waters, but the glaciers are retreating at a fast pace. The ones on the Indian side may be gone in the next 20-30 years, causing severe water problems. Changes to weather patterns may even make the rains less reliable, cause unpredictable storms, and rising temperatures could reduce the agricultural output significantly. The worst hit will unfortunately be the poor — as the article says, “a factory worker with an air-conditioner will feel global warming less than a subsistence farmer will”.

How is this related to media? To answer this question, we need to understand more about the role of media in policy formulation towards tackling climate change. Let us first differentiate between measures to prevent/alleviate climate change, and measures to adapt to climate change. Increasing evidence on the huge amounts of carbon already released into the atmosphere indicates that climate change is inevitable and prevention is not possible. At best, the impacts can be alleviated by slowing down carbon emissions, and most policies being pushed by governments of various countries are focused on this. Adaptation to climate change however requires more foresight and planning, and this includes preparing for water problems, disease, population, and energy needs 20 years out into the future. To a large extent, this becomes a matter internal to each country, and this is where India seems to be lacking. Practically no policies have been put in place to deal with the issues. The political process in India is in fact described as haphazard by The Economist. This is where media comes in: Appropriate policy formulation in a democracy requires consensus, which requires an informed electorate, and which requires responsible media.

Media has many roles, from providing breaking news about global and local happenings, to contextualization of the news, its analysis, and a crucial role of educating the audience on various issues that could be relevant for them. The Indian media unfortunately seems to have defined its roles very narrowly, and has singularly left out its educational responsibilities. This is one of the likely reasons why Indian politics have become polluted with misplaced priorities, because the people are never taught to make the right demands, and are easily swayed by rhetorical visions that only lead to inefficient and fragile paths to progress for themselves. Much of the time of young Indians who desire change is spent on protests to demand cheap gasoline, reservations, reverse immigration, etc, and not to demand better irrigation facilities, educational institutions, transportation infrastructure, and cold-storage units in rural areas. It is this attitude that the Indian media needs to change, because a citizenry that does not think in an informed and logical manner will never be able to vote for appropriate policies. In fact, the voting criteria currently followed by the majority of the Indian population is hardly based on policy debates, and has instead been infiltrated by a large number of superfluous issues.

To summarize, climate change will have a huge impact on the Indian economy, and appropriate policies are needed to plan for adaptation rather than only the prevention and alleviation of climate change. Media has an instrumental role to play in this regard, by educating people to think and demand for the right policies. Unfortunately, we do not have much time to do this. If the world is going to be a very different place in the next 20 years, then we need to act right away. And informing and educating a nation of a billion people to think and act rationally, to look after themselves, and help each other in the forthcoming times that will be ridden by environmental crises, is not going to be easy. Our goal at Gram-Vaani is to connect visionaries, educators, and people together on a nation-wide media platform within 5 years through which they can exchange and understand information, eventually enabling everybody to take better decisions and lay out an efficient and robust path to progress for themselves. And it is really you who can help us achieve this goal!