Mariana Atencio was just 14 years old when President Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela. As his family watched his victory together on television, they were distraught. “There was an apocalyptic atmosphere at home,” he recalls.
The military officer came into office promising to alleviate poverty, and decades of poor investment and oil policies have left the country in trouble. Instead, during Chavez's first year in office, he took steps to dissolve the country's Supreme Court and Congress and set up government infrastructure so that Nicolás Maduro could continue to keep Venezuela under authoritarian rule.
“As someone who hopes to work, live and raise a family there, I also realize that may not be possible in the future,” said Atencio, an award-winning freelance journalist now based in Miami. His approach to journalism was influenced by his experience growing up in Venezuela.
decided to escape
Under Chavez, Atencio has watched Caracas, the capital where he grew up on the country's northern Caribbean coast, descend into chaos. After the government shut down one of the country's largest television stations, she saw the importance of journalism in the functioning of a democracy and became involved in student protests that sometimes turned violent and even deadly.
“Student activism was the foundation of my career as a journalist,” said Atencio, who was studying journalism at university during the protests.
A few months after joining the event, she survived an unrelated attack by a man while hiking in the Avila Mountains above Caracas. The attacker pointed a gun at her and asked her to kneel down and count to 100 before robbing her and letting her go. The attack showed that their home was rapidly changing and becoming dangerous.
“I really thought I was going to die,” Atencio explained.
She decided to flee (one of more than seven million people fleeing the country's political and economic turmoil) and continue her career in a safe place. She received a scholarship to continue studying journalism at Columbia University and has since built a global audience that values her authenticity and on-the-ground approach to reporting. In an age of growing misinformation and authoritarian threats, especially among Spanish-speaking communities, trust is perhaps the most valuable currency among media creators.
'It's all about the weather'
Although Atencio has worked at Telemundo and NBC News, he now works independently through GoLike, a production company he founded in 2020. Now, at 40, he has established a Latin brand and image that is all his own. She is serious and inspiring, yet playful and vulnerable. Central to her approach is authenticity: showing emotion and “realness,” in her words.
Atencio uses its platform to engage readers on a variety of news topics, one of which is climate change. Not many journalists talking about the environment look like the communities most affected by climate impacts. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, this remains the whitest issue, making Atencio a rare Latino voice on the issue.
In Venezuela, Atencio did not hear about climate change and carbon emissions when she was growing up, but she has loved this land since she was a child. “Venezuela's rich biodiversity constantly reminds us of the importance of protecting the earth and its ecosystems, influencing our attitude towards environmental management,” said Graciela Atencio, Mariana's sister and business partner.
In 2017, he witnessed firsthand Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida, where he lives, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and the Puebla earthquake in Mexico, and he felt the devastation like never before. Stopped.
“That summer was terrible,” he said. “The mainstream media doesn't cover these communities. By then, the mainstream media disappears.
Atencio often draws connections between climate and migration in his reporting. While in Harvey, she interviewed documented immigrants who were afraid to go to shelters to seek help. In 2018, Atencio traveled with the migrant caravan and heard from families fleeing drought in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. He then went on to cover the youth climate movement that took to the streets around the world in 2019 to demand climate action.
“As society's awareness of environmental issues grows, so does their dedication to illuminating these critical issues,” said her sister Graciela.
Peter Shaw, a field producer for MSNBC and NBC News, was often with Atencio in those days. They were there when environmental issues began to take center stage during Donald Trump's presidency.
“It’s hard to make a story right now without climate change,” he explained in a phone interview. “It's all about the weather.”
Shaw saw how Atencio managed to add “a human element or a human feel,” as he puts it.
“A lot of these stories are very political: there's statistics, there's numbers, there's back and forth,” Xiao said. “Lost in the middle are the people who are affected by it. “He has a real gift for finding characters that give our audience a broader perspective. “
She vividly remembers how hurricane survivors talked to Marianna despite her recent trauma. She handles them with care. Rather than reducing them to stereotypes or sob stories, Atencio often translates people's stories live, making the audience immediately understand the situation.
“She was his spokesperson at the time, and that's why he was so picky,” Shaw said.
Revealing the reality of a hotter planet
When Atencio isn't reporting from affected locations or talking to viewers on social media, she's moderating conversations with big names like actress Eva Longoria and political donor Katherine Murdoch. In March 2024, she hosted the Aspen Creative: Climate Summit in Miami, where her role was to create Spanish-language content and present it on the main stage.
She has clear opportunities to connect with Spanish and English speakers, posting messages on social media in both languages to her nearly 500,000 followers on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Researchers from the Yale Climate Change Communication Program and George Mason University found that 64% of Latinos and Hispanics surveyed in the U.S. said they were alarmed or worried about climate change, a higher number than whites and Hispanics reported figures. A global survey last year of Meta users with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp highlighted that across Latin America, and particularly in Puerto Rico, respondents attributed extreme weather and extreme heat to climate change.
Meanwhile, Spanish speakers have been increasingly targeted by climate denial and conspiracy theories on TikTok, according to a survey last year by Media Matters for America. A 2023 report from several environmental and misinformation groups found that disinformation also spreads after extreme weather events in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Peru and Chile, which divert attention from the role rising temperatures play in disasters. character's attention.
Atencio remains committed to shining a light on the reality of a hotter planet, especially in her native Venezuela. The country has the world's largest oil reserves, but Venezuela has paid a huge price in search of this dirty money. The oil industry has collapsed, leaving pollution and health problems in its wake, but recent U.S. policy changes may soon reopen the decrepit industry. Now he fears his people's farming methods and logging activities could endanger their long-term well-being.
“In this country, people are still fighting for electricity, water, food and medicine,” he said. “In a country that is so wealthy and has such fertile soil, people are struggling to get food.”
He wants them to understand how these issues relate to climate. That’s what his storytelling is all about. “The power of our collective stories constitutes the history of our species,” Atencio said. He wants to see a free, safe Venezuela where he can once again roam the green hills without fearing for his life, a Venezuela where the glaciers have crystallized again and where his people have enough food, water and electricity to live forever.
*Editor's note: The Yale Climate Change Communication Program is the publisher of this website.
