Arts and science will have to go hand-in-hand in promoting understanding of climate change. While getting the facts and science behind climate change right is an essential part of climate change communication, an increasing focus has been placed on how they are presented. Cultural and creative resources are important tools for public engagement that have found utilisation in educational posters, conferences, and theatre and film. All these points towards the importance of engaging the people’s imagination when communicating on climate change. Read more

The ‘art’ of climate change communication

Mobilising cultural practitioners to promote understanding of climate change is important for public engagement

Adam Corner in The Guardian (18 March 2013):

Over the past decade, interest in the ‘science’ of communicating climate change has flourished. Psychologists, social marketers and campaigners have been united in the quest for systematic, reliable evidence with which to promote sustainable behaviour.

But while the science of climate change communication is clearly an essential piece of the puzzle, might there not be an ‘art’ to it too?

For individuals and organisations communicating climate change, it is easy to forget that most people don’t live their lives in a series of dislocated behaviours that can be influenced or nudged in a more sustainable direction. Ask yourself: what are the things that make you laugh, inspire you, or fill your conversations with friends? For most of us, the answer will involve culture, not cognition.

It follows that mobilising our cultural and creative resources might be as important for public engagement with climate change as technological or political changes – and there is evidence that this is starting to happen. To take one topical example, the charity Do The Green Thing (a reliably creative and unpredictable group) are publishing a series of posters by a leading artist throughout March, under the heading of “creativity versus climate change”. These are not po-faced posters, but playful provocations – and they stick in your mind for that reason.

A conference planned for June in Aberystwyth will focus on the potential for syntheses between science and art in responding to climate change. Uncivilisation, a music, literature and storytelling festival (organised by a network of writers, artists and thinkers in search of “new stories for troubled times”) is now in its fourth year. The campaign group Platform continues to oppose BP’s links with the Tate Gallery by using innovative methods like alternative audio tours, which challenge the legitimacy of oil-sponsored culture.

And organisations like Artists Project Earth (a group of artists, scientists, journalists, environmentalists, film makers and authors) have been working for many years to support climate change and environmental campaigning.

But given the importance of the issue, it is surprising how little overlap there has been between the social science of climate change communication and the creative world.

That art provides a vehicle for bringing dry political sentiment to life is certainly not a new observation – but save for a few notable exceptions, there has been a gaping hole where creative energy should be.

Climate change theatre and films are thin on the ground. The situation is barely any different in the world of literature and storytelling. While there are a handful of examples of climate change-oriented novels, it does not seem to have fired the imagination of authors. But while the potential for storytelling to make the invisible, often abstract concept of climate change tangible has so far evaded novelists, some climate change communication projects are starting to explore the territory.

A set of beautifully shot films telling the stories of people’s lives affected by the changing climate in the US state of Wisconsin are an eye-catching entry point to a set of educational materials designed to aid teaching about climate change.

And closer to home, a project aimed specifically at overcoming the limitations of conventional climate change communication strategies (ie that they tend to reach only a very narrow group of the population) offers an exciting blend of art and social science.

Named the Aspects project, it represents an attempt to connect discussion about climate change to people’s everyday lives through the medium of digital storytelling.

The Aspects website hosts a series of short films, featuring people who have a story to tell about their lives, about the weather, about their local communities – and indirectly about climate change.

What’s interesting about the Aspects approach is that while the medium appeals on a cultural level – films, storytelling, and anecdotes about the world around us – the films are also putting into practice good principles of climate change communication. The abstract, invisible nature of climate change is rendered real through everyday stories, while the fact that the storytellers are members of the public, rather than activists or campaigners, creates a positive social norm.

Typically, the challenge of climate change communication is thought to require systematic evidence about public attitudes, sophisticated models of behaviour change and the rigorous application of social scientific research. All of this is true, but it is human stories, not carbon targets, that capture people’s attention.

The science of climate change communication is essential to engage people’s minds, but the art of engaging people’s imaginations may be just as important.

Adam Corner is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on the psychology of communicating climate change. He leads the Talking Climate programme for the Climate Outreach and Information Network and is a research associate in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk