Can the Arts Help the Climate Crisis?

This is a big question, and one that is at the heart of my summer research! Ecocriticism, the literary movement that seeks to explore the roles of nature in a text, has a lot to say about this. There aren't any definitive answers, but I thought it might be interesting to start unpacking this question and offer an opinion. 

What does the theory say? 

As mentioned, one of the key debates covered by ecocriticism is how far artistic and cultural discourse can actually prove valuable to solving the climate crisis. Greg Garrard discusses and summarizes some of this this in his book Ecocriticism to suggest that, by ecocriticism's currently dominating ideas, ecocritical theory, environmental writing, and art cannot - and should not -  develop new scientific ecological understanding. The reasons for this are multiple. Most notably, literary studies cannot offer new quantitative research to the ecological sciences. Equally, critics such as Timothy Morton suggest that viewing nature as an aesthetic construct is reductive and doesn't demand the urgency required to address ecological crises. 

However, Garrard does observe that ecocritics and environmental writers/ artists can develop a "literacy" to explore ecological topics in all literary forms - and so the suggestion is that artistic and cultural discourse isn't wholly useless in this respect. Citing John Passmore, who renders a difference between "problems in ecology" - to connote cultural terms - and "ecological problems" - as strictly scientific - Garrard elaborates to explain how ecocriticism can "help to define, explore and even resolve ecological problems in this wider sense." Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is an example of this; it comments upon natural matter in a critical way without necessarily adding new scientific understanding.  The suggestion is, then, that the rhetoric and modes of communication employed by environmental writers and artists (and duly investigated by ecocriticism) help generate awareness and comprehension of ecological issues. 

What do I think? 

Well, I broadly agree with Garrard. I think it is dangerous to conflate fictional and scientific understanding; this has wide and resounding repercussions that we can witness in the resurgence of fake news, anti-vaccine movements and more. However, I do think that using fictional and other more palatable discursive modes than scientific literature as a tool towards scientific knowledge is important. Especially when it comes to understanding and galvanizing solutions for something as unequivocal and important as the climate crisis. 

Obviously, the merits of accessible, easily-understandable information don't really need elaborating. Nobody should be gate-kept from information, and it is important that the climate crisis is understood by as many people as possible. Equally, the arts (including literature) play a crucial and unique role in making information digestible; they emotively engage people and speak to them moreso than drily formatted scientific reports written in unapproachable jargon. This should not be ignored. Rather, I believe the arts should be utilized in order to involve as many people as possible. Representative media, that speaks to a variety of identities and experiences whilst appealing to our senses, is a vital way of rendering information as tangible and feelable. I think it is important that this is applied to the climate crisis. It will demand urgency and action, where there is still too frequently little.

Because climate change is a relatively recently understood phenomonon, there is perhaps a void of material in comparison to other topics. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't any. Texts such as Annhilation (Jeff VanderMeer) and The Swan Book (Alexis Wright), for example, comment upon a future in which the earth has been completely exploited and depleted of its resources. These texts draw on the scientific and political realities of now, but also signify that there is time to change our ways before more of these dystopian fictions become coloured by reality. Equally, Zadie Xa's Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dangerous Day Dreamers, an art installation recently at Leeds Art Gallery, places agency with the wildlife and creatures who are trampled upon by man's colonization of Earth. The installation involves the audiences' senses and embeds them in the upsetting narratives of these animals to implore for change. There are many more examples - and I don't doubt that artistic material commenting upon ecological and climate breakdown will become more prevalent over our lifetimes. 

I guess that my conclusion is, perhaps, optimistic. How far people will be seriously influenced and engaged by art - or at least individual pieces of it - is incredibly difficult to gauge. That said, I maintain that the way in which the arts so considerably contribute to our cultural understanding in turn enriches our political, social, and scientific understanding. Art may not give us science, but it can help us understand it. I'd be interested to hear whether you agree. 

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