Trent Durham's Climate Communication Option empowers students to use storytelling and activism skills to address the climate crisis, says Dr. Neil Ever Osborne
The climate crisis is also a communication crisis. The most critical storylines involving characters and transformations of hope are missing.
As a photographer, filmmaker, and researcher, I examine the converging social and environmental issues that narrate our times. In this pursuit, I have documented the shrinking sea ice in the Canadian Arctic and the deforestation of the Amazon. At home, in the GTA, I have witnessed flash flooding during extreme weather events because the water has nowhere to go, and I smelled the pungent wildfire smoke last summer, just as you might have.
This work highlights the harsh truth of humanity's effect on the planet. However, as audiences and lawmakers' responses have told us, these stories are not enough.
We need more climate communicators in our communities, seeking out the missing stories that set a new course forward. Climate communicators understand that the climate crisis will compound the world's other social injustices, so they look for stories that intersect with community values and diverse worldviews. For example, tackling affordable housing and food security through a climate lens stands to solve multiple crises.
To ensure our communities are informed and actively engaged in building solutions to the climate crisis, we also need these communicators to advocate for change in systems perpetuating the climate problem.
That's why I helped to swiftly develop an Option in Climate Communication at Trent University Durham GTA, a first-of-its-kind education experience authoring a new climate story.
The Option blends courses across disciplines at Trent Durham GTA to teach communication and activism strategy and tactics. Students will come to understand the limits of specific activist actions better and recognize ways of making their words and images meaningful.
Equipped with this critical knowledge base, this new offering at Trent Durham aims to use effective climate change communications to foster a more sustainable and equitable world where our collective well-being is at heart.
At Trent Durham, we encourage the next generation to effect change in our world through their studies.
Learn more about the Climate Communication Option at Trent Durham.
This article, penned by Dr. Neil Ever Osborne, Trent University Durham GTA, originally appeared in Durham Metroland.
