A hotbed of rapid environmental change due to rising seas, Miami is also becoming a place of innovative environmental communication for diverse communities.
Article by Juliet Pinto and Robert E. Gutsche, Jr.
From creating virtual reality stories, documentaries and even an app about neighborhood flooding, to producing a multi-disciplinary play about climate change, journalism and digital media students at Florida International University continue to focus on putting Miami front and center in climate communication.
“A ‘sea change’ in perception toward climate change will only take place when we are prepared to change personal habits by caring more for people and place,” said Phillip Church, an associate professor in the FIU College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts’ Department of Theatre. Church is directing a multi-disciplinary performance on climate change and sea level rise in particular.
It’s an important and timely topic. The challenges related to sea level rise in South Florida are staggering:
Miami has been called by some “ground zero” for sea level rise, as it has the most economic assets at risk for impacts of sea level rise. With an average elevation of six feet, South Florida has no high ground to retreat to when sea levels rise.
Added to this are the complications presented by having in essence two coastlines: the salt and brackish waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay to the east, and the fresh waters of the Everglades and the canal systems to the west.
Finally, and perhaps most seriously, South Florida has what climate change expert John Englander has called the region’s “Achilles Heel”: the porous limestone rock under the ground that allows for sea water to simply push in from below and bubble up through storm drains and low lying inland areas. It also means that the Biscayne Aquifer, the underground freshwater aquifer that the entire region depends on for freshwater, is also becoming saltier as saltwater pushes westward, contaminating coastal wells.
Measuring Miami’s Economic Climate
Insurance companies and banks issuing 30-year mortgages are keeping a close eye on climate change impacts and the rapidly developing projections for South Florida’s future. At a 2014 Senate hearing in Miami Beach on sea level rise and the risks it poses for South Florida’s seven million residents, a reinsurance expert testified to Sen. Bill Nelson that sea level’s relentless upward climb could leave some properties uninsurable, and therefore worthless.
As local politicians, business leaders, and concerned citizens debate the degree to which raising streets and buildings in Miami Beach, improving flood control infrastructure in and along the canal systems, and digging new freshwater wells in Palmetto Bay will save South Florida, the need to educate local communities about the issue has therefore particular urgency.
Telling Complex Stories of Climate Change
FIU faculty at the School of Communication + Journalism in the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts have engaged in various projects to teach their students—future media professionals—how to produce content across multimedia formats that engages audiences and presents the science in compelling, accurate ways.
FIU’s Mobile Virtual Reality Lab tells stories of daily flooding and effects of sea rise in Miami.
“The time to act is now, and at the VR lab, we take action every day,” says Cindy Castro, a digital media studies major at FIU. “We work tirelessly to plan, produce and edit videos about South Florida’s changing environment. We also share our projects with our friends and South Florida communities across a variety of platforms. It’s important to get this information out to as many people as possible.”
With some $50,000 in technology, dozens of students in the Department of Journalism + Media have spent the past year immersing themselves in storytelling that places users within the narrative theatre of Miami’s living laboratory for sea level rise impacts.
Virtual reality is especially critical in telling stories of the unseen related to sea level rise. As seas rise, saltwater pushes beneath South Florida and into its freshwater aquifer. At the same time, saltwater rises to the surface through porous limestone – entering Miami streets through storm drains even during sunny days – and it becomes challenging not only to discuss today’s environmental concerns let alone prepare populations for what might come next.
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The Power of Story
Together, Robert E. Gutsche, Jr., Susan Jacobson, Kate MacMillin and Juliet Pinto, the team developed an award-winning, grant-funded “Eyes on the Rise” project (eyesontherise.org) in 2014, which produced a website, an app, peer-reviewed research and a student-produced web series. The app – a collaboration among the SCJ, the FIU GIS Department, and media company Fusion – has had particular success, with hundreds of thousands of views, and receiving attention from national and international media.
In short, the app and website helped to visualize the “unseen” of sea level rise in South Florida.
The “Eyes” project was a continuation to the work of MacMillin and Pinto, who produced the award-winning documentary, “South Florida’s Rising Seas,” narrated by Englander, in 2014. The program premiered on South Florida’s PBS affiliate WPBT2 and became the most watched online show for the station that year. It also won the “Best Short Documentary” award from the Miami International Film Festival, and at the time of this writing has nearly 100,000 views.
MacMillin followed this success by tasking her multimedia production class to create a nine-part webseries on sea level rise, premiered in 2015 on the webpage of South Florida’s WPBT2, and became their most watched webseries. MacMillin then worked with an SCJ student, Abel Fernandez, to create a second documentary from the webseries. “South Florida’s Rising Seas: Impact” premiered on WPBT2 in 2015 and is narrated by John Morales, the meteorologist for South Florida’s NBC 6 station and who has won both Emmys and fellowships to the American Meteorological Society.
Known Unknowns of the Future
Telling the stories of Miami’s inundated infrastructure, related potential health concerns, and the region’s potential to survive sea rise has become a vital way to influencing students and their communities about the region’s past – and its future.
“Hearing about sea-level rise can be alarming, and researching it really helped me understand how inevitable it is,” says FIU journalism graduate Amanda Rabines. “That’s why I think telling the story is so important. I hope that digital storytelling can spark some urgency in the community to re-imagine ways to get above high waters. It’s one thing to read about sea level-rise and South Florida’s low-lying infrastructure, it’s another to see it and feel like you’re of the story.”
Just as local municipalities are not waiting for the flood waters to come before they act, FIU educators and students are proactively producing content and information distribution for diverse audiences across myriad multimedia informational technologies. The question is: Will it be enough in a time of intense political polarization and reduced funding for public entities?
“As researchers, teachers, and community leaders, it is incumbent upon us to be proactive in creating opportunities for our students to be engaged in the one of the most pressing issues
of our time,” says FIU journalism professor
Moses Shumow, coauthor with Gutsche on News, Neoliberalism, and Miami’s Fragmented Urban Space, which examines news coverage of local climate change. “Sea level rise will affect all of us in the coming decades, and we have to be at the forefront of efforts to create critical awareness and action around this topic.”
Juliet Pinto, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism + Media at Florida International University. She is co-author of the recent Environmental News in South America: Conflict, Crisis and Contestation (Palgrave).
Robert E. Gutsche, Jr., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism + Media at Florida International University. He is co-author of News, Neoliberalism, and Miami’s Fragmented Urban Space, Lead of the Mobile Virtual Reality Lab, and Producer of “A Sea Change” at FIU.
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