For the Oranges of Sargodha District: Pakistan, Podcasts and Environmental Policy Work with Living on Earth

Written by Shanzay Asif, Living on Earth Environmental Scholar Co-op, supported by the Academy of Natural Sciences

Throughout my childhood, oranges had been the quintessential winter fruit in my village in Pakistan. The lure of the brilliant orange, the sweet and seizing taste, etched in my memory of mornings spent under the gentle winter sun, feasting on kinnow, mausami and red blood oranges. 

But the fertile soil we took pride in was plagued by rising water tables and soil concentrations. Though these fluctuations are commonplace, the looming threat of climate change offers no respite. Having grown up watching the back-breaking perseverance of farmers in a country which will incur major losses of arable land, I fear a future in which oranges and our staple crops will become as scarce as they are in dystopian stories. 

What is your raison d’être? I have spent the past five years trying to answer this question: across continents, across communities, across languages and across distances from everything that was familiar to me Pakistan.  

I joined Drexel in the fall of 2022, feeling very strongly about all that needs to be done in my country and overwhelmingly confused about how to proceed with my goals. As the daughter of a Pakistani agriculturist, I have intimately witnessed the failure of policy and research to reconcile and address climate change.  

During my time at Drexel, however, I have received amazing support from the faculty to identify environmental policy and international agreements as my raison d’être. Currently, I am a double major in global studies and environmental studies with a French minor. 

Through the Academy of Natural Sciences, I found my first co-op with the nationally syndicated public radio show Living on Earth. It has allowed me to develop a nuanced environmental justice framework and experiment with audio journalism. I have been able to weave together stories from around the world: heat waves in my home country Pakistan, cancerous air pollution in Beirut, PFAS contamination in Nantucket and the SCOTUS decision on Chevron Deference, to name a few. 

Born into an agricultural tribe in rural Punjab, a daughter of the soil, I was not taught how to advocate for myself or to represent my community. So, I have nurtured the art of storytelling during my time with Living on Earth to articulate stories in audio and in my written word. 

My favorite part of the editorial process for Living on Earth is definitely the pre-interview call. Because it is not recorded, most interviewees are rather forthcoming with their perspectives. This has offered excellent insight for me as I start out my environmental career into what people belonging to different areas of expertise (law, federal policy, advocacy, authors, journalists and scientists) are thinking. The aftermath of the pre-interview — the recorded interview itself, the audio editing of the segment, writing the lead, polishing the transcript and compiling the pictures for the web page — is, of course, very deadline oriented and formalized. But, it always starts with a simple conversation. 

Since the beginning of May, every phone call with my family in Pakistan has begun with a complaint about how hot it is. Heat in Pakistan has been debilitating in recent years and is unlike the hot summer days of my childhood. When asked about the heatwaves across Pakistan by the Executive Producer of Living on Earth Steve Curwood, I rushed to convey everything that I had been hearing from family and friends.  

With Steve’s encouragement, I mapped out a segment on the heatwaves in Pakistan over the span of a week. I am fortunate to have connections with environmental experts in Pakistan and reached out to Rafay Alam over the weekend for a rushed pre-interview call. He represents Pakistan at COP conferences and is our most prominent environmental lawyer with a consistent record of advocacy for better policies.  

The research aspect and drafting questions proved easy, because the story was about home. After the recorded interview, however, I was told that we would run the entire interview, all 20 minutes. Twenty minutes out of the whole one-hour weekly show was thrilling for me as an intern, so I meticulously edited the segment to define the narrative. It was meant to convey a very clear message: Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change has a lot more to do with the choices made by the Global North. 

We, Pakistan, as a country, contribute less than 1% percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, but are the fifth most vulnerable to climate change. Inside Climate News (ICN) picked up the transcript of my segment on heatwaves in Pakistan, given their collaboration with Living on Earth. Through ICN, the interview segment reached a broader audience and apparently received the highest number of page hits they had gotten on a story over the last year. 

Currently, I am working on Living on Earth’s coverage for the upcoming US presidential election. The 2024 voter must and will need to factor the environment into their decision. This involves, as with any story, a thorough analysis of the environmental track records of both candidates as well as potential policy reforms. 

I intend to conclude my co-op experience with another field-reported story from home on the convergence of climate crises in South Asia: excess flooding, vicious heat waves, unrelenting floods and a deficiency of data and innovation. This would be a rather ambitious project given it requires cross-border collaboration with experts from India and Bangladesh, but all the more reason to piece it together. 

The challenge with the broader science field which I have identified and witnessed at home is its inability to coordinate with other disciplines and areas of expertise. All the research and innovation in Pakistan functions in silos with minimal effect on policy, politics and regulations. It is these two spheres that I hope to bridge together, in order for my country to adapt and mitigate in response to climate change rather than damage control in the aftermath of climate disruptions. 

Across Lahore, Philadelphia and hopefully in Paris where I will be studying this fall, I seek out communities of storytellers. The policy work I intend to do rests upon my ability to listen, articulate and share stories representing Pakistan and the Global South in the international arena.  

The world must know about the oranges of Sargodha district in rural Punjab, Pakistan. It must know about all the stories that have gone untold to devise policy solutions for the future of the lands and water that humans have tended to over centuries. 

Listen to Shanzay Asif’s Living on Earth piece ‘No Place to Hide’ In Pakistan.

The Environmental Justice Audio-Journalism co-op at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is made possible by the Jane and John Bales Endowed Fund for young scientists and researchers. Consider a donation today to help support the future of other bright and inspiring students in the sciences.