Climate Change Conversations: Causes, Impacts, Solutions

Communicating Climate Change through Art


Some artists have taken to addressing the issue of climate change through their artwork, from basket-weaving to documentary filmmaking. According to mockumentary filmmaker Randy Olsen, in a panel discussion recorded by WGBH in 2008, a challenge in artistic methods of communicating climate change is the difficulty in telling a compelling, engaging story that will resonate with audiences while effectively communicating the technical and scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change. But it is a challenge accepted by artists like Olsen and Nathalie Miebach. On communicating climate change through sculpture and basket-weaving, Miebach, in a public lecture on WGBH Forum Network, stated that she is "trying to explore the kind of expectations that we bring with us when we try to address a question either through science or through art, and how this visualization influences the way we understand something."

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Image of melting Arctic glaciers from After the Warming

Courtesy of Maryland Public Television

Curator

Casey E. Davis Kaufman

AAPB Project Manager - WGBH