THAT IS NOT CLIMATE COMMUNICATION! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!
The email is still vivid in my mind. “Please can you just come and take photos of our workshop and post them on social media?” Please, we have visitors. We need photos. Please take communication along. I paused before replying. Not because I was busy. Not because I was unwilling. But because I knew the request was not about climate communication. It was about photography. Nothing more. Across climate projects in West Africa, communication professionals are quietly being redefined. Not as interpreters of science. Not as translators of risk. But as official photographers with Wi-Fi. The routine is familiar. Arrive early. Capture the keynote. Snap the banner. Line everyone up for the group photo. Post it. Add the word impact to the caption. Everyone relaxes. Something has been “done”. Nothing changes. Somewhere along the line, we confused visibility with meaning. We began to believe that if it appeared online, it must have mattered. Climate communication slipped from helping people ...