Source: Green Kunming

The Climate Change Awareness Action Project focuses on strengthening students’ and the general public’s understanding of climate change and low-carbon environmental protection through the introduction of outstanding climate science works and the establishment of a science publicity platform.

Behind the scenes of the climate science works, hundreds of volunteers signed up to work with Green Kunming to sift through the many existing online videos to find examples of excellent and typical videos, translate and dub them to Chinese, and advocate for the public to actively join in climate action. The translated and dubbed videos were full of excellent works, including Here, take the temperature of the sea, The seed vault of the Arctic Circle，Rapid decline of Arctic sea ice etc. Volunteers translated the content of the videos in easy-to-understand words, so that the general public can receive more scientific knowledge without language limitations.

There are many volunteers of different ages and from different professions, including elementary school students, teachers, environmental protection workers, freelancers and so on. They are all ordinary beings, but they are doing significant things.

When they were asked why they wanted to participate in such an event, the response was "to help themselves and others in the fight against climate change."

Mr. Xiao Tian, a science teacher at a school in Kunming, and his eight-year-old son are both voice-over volunteers for environmental science videos.

As a science teacher, he is well aware that climate change is closely related to the living environment of living things on earth. In recent years, global warming has affected the living environment of human beings. So he and his 8-year-old son both signed up to become volunteers to learn more about climate knowledge through volunteer activities and pass it on to people around them, as well as to call more attention to the climate crisis. “In our daily teaching activities, we will also impart relevant knowledge to our students. We expect to contribute a little bit to climate change through our actions.” Xiaotian said.

Dun Dun - a primary school student - is also one of the volunteers, and he surprisingly hopes that through the dubbing of the science video more people will understand the learning and practice low carbon in their lives.

According to Dun Dun , through participating in the dubbing of science videos, he has also gained a deeper understanding of the greenhouse effect. For example，in agriculture, some crops can grow better in a warmer climate by avoiding cold. Learning about meteorology also protects against more extreme weather.

Many people learned and understood a lot about climate change and had a lot of insights through our volunteer service activities.

Ms. Xiaotian: “I feel very happy in the process of volunteering for the climate change popularization program, and I have popularized the knowledge of climate change to more people. When I participate in volunteer activities, I also bring my children along with me, so that I can engage them through my words and actions and make them realize the importance of environmental protection. At the same time, I also integrate the corresponding knowledge of climate change and climate crisis into my classroom, and lead my students to participate in environmental protection activities.”

Kate: “There are so many things we can do against climate change, and by doing many little things we actually can change the situation.”

Dun Dun: “My own greatest feeling is that helping others can also help myself. Even though sometimes a sentence needs to be dubbed many times, I don't feel tired at all, I always want to make the sentence smooth, and hope that more people can understand and learn more about climate science.”

Nowadays, global climate change is accelerating, seriously affecting and threatening the survival and development of human beings, and more and more people are actively participating in the fight against climate change in various ways. Volunteers, with the spark of a star, gather into a torch to light up the path of climate action for themselves and for others.

Project introduction:

The Climate Change Awareness Action Project is funded by the Misur Foundation for Social Development in Germany and implemented by Green Kunming. The project period is from July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022. The "Climate Change Awareness Action project aims to translate and introduce excellent climate science popularization works, establish a science popularization platform, and promote the process of climate science popularization. To raise awareness of climate change among students and the general public so that they have access to good educational programmes. Create a climate knowledge database for teachers and others to make climate science accessible to the public.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not related to the position of the funder.