Environmental advocates on Friday called on the media to join the crusade to defend the environment and expose the impact of climate change.
"Cultural practices and farming methods across the country including burning of farm lands, forest degradation, and unethical operations of some corporate bodies which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may warm the earth and change the climate in other ways".
"Other human activities, such as felling of trees, rice cultivation, and cattle rustling, may have the same effect, but are less important, Mr.
Samuel Anku, Director, Inter-sectoral Networks of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stated at a day's symposium on Climate Change for the media in Accra.
The symposium under the theme: "Managing the Impact of Climate Change for socio-Economic Development", was organised by EPA in collaboration with Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology and other environmental
groups.
The journalists were educated on the impact of global warming and climate change; greenhouse effect; rapid changes in global temperature;
weather patterns; rising sea levels; failing agricultural output; role of the media in information dissemination on climate change; the Kyoto Protocol and International treaties on climate change.
Mr. Anku reminded journalists of their crucial role in protecting the environment "as the average cost of climate change in the developed world would probably be small, although some people and regions might have high costs and others might receive large benefits".
"In some poor countries, the cost could be very high.a large or fast change in climate would have a big effect on plants and animals in their
natural environment," he added.
Mr. Anku noted that through public education and sensitisation, Ghana could reduce the rate at which carbon dioxide was building up in the
atmosphere by burning less coal, oil and natural gas.
He stressed the need to provide Ghanaians with information for mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change for instance
"farmers need to know whether the changing circumstances in which they grow their plants or raise their animals is merely a question of variability or permanent change to weather patterns.
"Our villages and communities across the country also need channels through which they can share information on strategies that have worked well for them and to adapt such techniques to their own circumstances".
Mr. Anku called for the collaboration between journalists and scientists because both had vital roles to play in the climate change
debate; "scientists need to simplify their research findings for lay audience, explain scientific jargons and make it relevant to journalists".
Mr. Oppong-Boadi Kyekyeku, an official of EPA, who spoke on the "Extent of Environmental and Climate in the country", called for adaptation through a change of some agriculture practices and other human activities.
He said natural events and human activities were believed to be contributing to an increase in average global temperatures, which was caused
primarily by increases in "greenhouse" gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2).
Mr. Kyekyeku said human activity had caused an imbalance in the natural cycle of greenhouse effect and related processes - the result is that humans were adding ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
"Because of this, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are higher now than over the last half-million years or longer", he added.