How does art help communicate the climate crisis?

Journalist Bill McKibben once observed that climate change lacked cultural relevance, particularly in the arts. “Oddly, though we know about it, we don’t know about it,” he wrote for Grist in 2005. “It hasn’t registered in our gut; it isn’t part of our culture. Where are the books? The poems? The plays? The ******* operas?” […]

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Journalist Bill McKibben once observed that climate change lacked cultural relevance, particularly in the arts.

“Oddly, though we know about it, we don’t know about it,” he wrote for Grist in 2005. “It hasn’t registered in our gut; it isn’t part of our culture. Where are the books? The poems? The plays? The ******* operas?”

This was almost 20 years ago, and of course a lot has changed. I think we have reached the point that McKibben hoped for, where we see climate change moving from scientific discourse to a broader cultural one. More artists than ever, like David Bacharach, have sought to capture the massive problem of climate change. In “Weaving Nature,” Bacharach has used sculptures made up of litter and invasive species to represent the degradation of our water, land and air.

As art and climate change grow more intertwined than ever, we also have to recognize the intersection can play out in some unexpected ways. The past few years, we’ve seen art transform into new expressions and extensions of climate activism that no one could have predicted. One of those expressions is using art as a platform for disruption. In Europe especially, activists have exploited art as a form of protesting fossil fuel expansion and advocate for a society that treats climate change as a true global emergency.

They have made headlines for gluing, hurling soup and flinging mashed potatoes at globally recognized paintings such as Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” and Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” The individual messages of these protests have varied; in May, French protesters used orange powder in the French palace of Versailles to protest an agriculture bill, and British octogenarians chipped the glass protecting the Magna Carta to call out the government for “breaking its own climate laws.” Their highly polarizing tactics have invited condescension and condemnation, but have also achieved a goal — getting global attention.

In drastically different ways, climate scientists have experimented using art in their own work to communicate sometimes-abstract concepts about global average temperatures and degrees of warming. Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading’s National Center for Atmospheric Scientist, has pioneered compelling but also scientifically accurate representations of climate change. One of his creations was a “climate spiral” showing temperatures rising from the late 19th century. His more famous graphic, though, has had the most impact because of its simplicity.

In 2018, Hawkins developed a graphic that has no labels, degrees, or dates, but color-codes annual global temperature changes from 1850-2017. He named it “warming stripes” for the bars of color that move from blue to dark red over the course of almost 170 years. People around the world have staged demonstrations, projected lights, printed materials based on the warming stripes. The warming stripes have become a symbol and shorthand to enhance what decades of scientific research have tried to communicate.

Academic literature also shows the importance of the arts and humanities in engaging the public on climate change. And last fall, the Biden administration experimented with a new partnership, highlighting art submissions as part of its release of the fifth National Climate Assessment — a federally mandated scientific report presents the latest national and regional impacts and risks of climate change.

There is little room for emotion in the National Climate Assessment’s thousands of pages of dry text. The final gallery, culled from the 800 submissions it received from children and professional artists, represented a different kind of story. Explaining the intention behind the initiative, National Climate Assessment Director Allison Crimmins said:

“I have seen a painting introduce a complex scientific idea to friends who are not scientists; watched an intriguing drawing spark a young person’s curiosity in how things work. I have noticed how a well-designed graphic persists in presentations and media long after a paper or report is published. And I know that a photograph can invoke empathy, can stir us to support one another and seek solutions.”

Through paintings, watercolors and prints, artists can tell hopeful stories alongside the frightening ones, creating meaning and also fighting despair. This summer should test artists in new ways, starting with heat waves. More than 260 million people face record-breaking heat waves this month. More cities might follow the example of Phoenix, Arizona, which is collaborating with artists to install new cooling and shading systems in the epicenter of extreme heat. Endeavors like this show how art is not just a communication and political tool, but also part of the solution.

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