Mark Allix: Can We Reconcile Contradictions between Social Economy and Economic Development?
Channel: SACSIS
Date: 2011-11-24

Mark Allix who is a correspondent at Business Day and also a SACSIS trustee recognized the high levels of pollution that the Medupi and Kusile power plants would emit, as well as the fact that South Africa, per capita, is one of the biggest polluters in the world with SASOL and Eskom being largely to blame, but wondered how do we reconcile the contradictions between economic dynamism and pollution as a journalist in the media, especially one writing for a business newspaper.

Allix made these remarks at a roundtable discussion, which sought to ascertain how the South African media is reporting on climate change in the run up to COP17. The roundtable was co-hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office and the South African Civil Society Information Service. It took place on November 11, 2011.

Keynote speakers at the event included: Brendan Boyle (Editor, Daily Dispatch), Sue Blaine (Environment and Development Editor, Business Day), Prof. Herman Wasserman, (Deputy Head of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University), Bobby Peek (Director, Groundwork) and Saliem Fakier (Head of the Living Planet Unit at the World Wildlife Fund and SACSIS columnist).