"While it is correct that everyone will feel the effects of climate change, the extent to which it impacts people differs-people's access to information and knowledge, for example, is one of the most important differentiating factors. During the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year, a UCLA study showed that affected communities with limited English proficiency suffered specific challenges as a result of not being able to understand alerts and information shared."
"Only about two billion of the world's population of roughly eight billion people speak English. However, almost 90 percent of scientific publications are in English and a majority of the conversations around climate-particularly anything related to policy, adaptation, or disaster response-are in English as well. This means that a large portion of immigrant communities in English-speaking countries like the United States and United Kingdom, and most of the rural populations in the Global South are left out of the climate conversation."
""What you're looking at is a situation where English is an elite language so [it] is, paradoxically, a language that unites people but also divides them. A bit like wealth....Those who have wealth accumulate more wealth, so those who [know] English have access to all kinds of information, and those who don't are cut off," said Mario Saraceni, associate professor in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Portsmouth, in the United Kingdom."
Wildfires and floods have intensified, impacting hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Climate change affects everyone, but severity varies because access to information and knowledge differs across populations. Limited English proficiency hindered communities during Los Angeles wildfires, preventing understanding of alerts and official information. Only about two billion of the world's roughly eight billion people speak English, while almost 90 percent of scientific publications are in English. Most policy, adaptation, and disaster-response conversations occur in English, excluding many immigrant communities in English-speaking countries and rural populations across the Global South. English acts as an elite language that concentrates information access among speakers.
Read at Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]