Harvin Bhathal

My name is Harvin Bhathal and I'm environmental journalist, researcher, & educator. I'm a first-generation Indo-Canadian, which is an important part of why my work focuses on the intersection of human-caused climate change, race, & settler colonialism. My work can be found in publications like Grist, CBC, Popular Science, and more. I did my MA in Journalism from Concordia University & my BA in Communication & Geography from Simon Fraser University. As a journalist, I chose to focus on climate journalism for two reasons. The first being the climate crisis is the most important issue of our lifetime, and it intersects with so many other issues like gender inequality, income inequality, & racism. Secondly, the more I learned about the gaps in Western mainstream media coverage of environmental issues, the more I wanted to do my best to address some of those gaps. In my MA thesis, I argued that more gender and racial diversity in the fields of climate journalism and climate science research would produce work that contextualizes the colonial and intersectional impacts of the climate crisis, values moral clarity and intellectual honesty over objectivity, and uses both Indigenous knowledge and Western science to understand our changing world. We have the answers, whether in climate journalism, climate policy, or elsewhere. They are just being disregarded because the people with the most power to create positive, transformative environmental impacts are among the most selfish, greedy, & hateful individuals this world has to offer.