Emerji is a set of emoji for climate change and emergency response. The world is experiencing increased extreme weather and disaster as we feel the effects of climate change. Emerji helps us talk about these global threats and experiences through the language we use to talk about everything else ... emoji.
Mobile phones and social media are becoming increasingly crucial to disaster response. Social media messages with platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and SMS are time-stamped, geo-located, mappable, and media enabled. This crowdsourced metadata has proven to be vital in effective and timely disaster preparedness and response. Disaster response organizations have developed new tools to respond to this shift in technology, but most projects to-date have been individual apps or opt-in alert systems. These types of projects are effective for people well prepared for disaster, but miss most impacted people, who are either unprepared or unaware of an impending disaster. For reaching all communities, social media becomes the most effective platform for planning, alerts and relief information.
Emoji are funny and frivolous, and we've often been asked why we want to use such a light-hearted platform to discuss such important and serious matters. The playfulness of emoji are one of their most powerful and globally popular attributes. People of all ages already use emoji as an integral component of social media image based communication. They are available across all software and hardware platforms, and communicate regardless of the language spoken by the user. Because of their adaptable nature, and daily use, they are a valuable tool for emergency response and climate change education and documentation.