Art Can Help us Understand the Climate Crisis

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The world of art may one way to help people understand issues around the climate crisis. The impacts of climate change are diverse and interconnected, which makes it difficult to conceptualize. Single use plastic use is connected to the tar sands, inequality is connected to palm oil production. It’s all so overwhelming.

Artists can help us get an understanding on what the climate crisis is to humans in practice through their works. Some artists try to capture the anthropecene while others make art to rile up politicians to act. Art and artists provide another way to understand the changing world around us.

While it’s hard to know what effect any one work has on the audience, creators — from authors to filmmakers to visual artists — are making a case for their role in tackling climate change: to engage people’s emotions and imagination in ways that straight data just won’t.

“Film … has the capacity to move people in a number of ways simultaneously … intellectually, emotionally, viscerally, all at the same time,” said filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal in an interview with Lynch.

“Using that medium to open up that consciousness, to move people in that way is our goal. Whether it works or not is another matter.”

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