The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues of our time. As temperatures continue to rise, natural disasters become more frequent and severe, and ecosystems become increasingly disrupted, it is clear that urgent action is needed to mitigate the worst impacts of global warming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global temperatures will rise by 1.5°C to 4.5°C by the end of the 21st century.
While much of the discourse around climate change has centered on science, policy, and economics, the arts, humanities, and cultural sectors also have an important role in raising awareness about the crisis and promoting a more sustainable future.
One of the critical ways the humanities can contribute to the climate movement is by helping to communicate the urgency of the crisis and the need for action. Through literature, film, music, and other artistic expression, artists can help humanize climate change and make it relevant to people's lives. For example, writers like Margaret Atwood and Kim Stanley Robinson have explored the themes of climate change in their work, while documentaries like "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Before the Flood" have brought the issue to a mass audience.
Another way in which the humanities can help to address the climate crisis is by encouraging critical thinking and fostering a deeper understanding of the cultural and ethical dimensions of the issue. For instance, scholars in environmental humanities have studied how human values and beliefs shape our relationship with the natural world and explore the ethical implications of our actions about the environment. This type of research can help to shed light on the complex social and cultural factors that contribute to climate change and can help to guide efforts to promote more sustainable practices.
In addition to raising awareness about the climate crisis, the arts, humanities, and cultural sectors can directly promote sustainability. For example, cultural institutions like museums, theatres, and concert halls can use their facilities and resources to reduce their carbon footprint, implement energy-efficient technologies, and educate their audiences about the importance of sustainability. In addition, cultural organizations can work with environmental groups to promote environmental campaigns and initiatives.
Despite the critical role the humanities can play in addressing the climate crisis, funding for environmental humanities research and initiatives remains limited. To ensure that the arts, humanities, and cultural sectors can contribute to the efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change, governments, foundations, and other organizations must increase their support for environmental humanities research and programs.
The concept of the Anthropocene, which recognizes that humans have become the dominant force in shaping the natural environment, has inspired new thinking about how we can create a more sustainable relationship with nature. Ecocriticism plays a significant role here, a relatively new field of literary and cultural studies that emerged in the 1990s, focusing on the relationship between literature and the environment. A key area of inquiry for ecocritics has been the relationship between the climate crisis and environmental justice. Scholars have examined how climate change disproportionately affects marginalized communities, such as indigenous peoples, low-income populations, and people of color, and how these communities have been historically excluded from environmental decision-making. Ecocritics have also analyzed the role of literature and culture in promoting environmental justice and advocating for more equitable and sustainable policies and practices.
Furthermore, renowned ecofeminist scholars like Val Plumwood and Maria Mies have examined how the domination of nature and the exploitation of women are interconnected and how these systems perpetuate the climate crisis.
In her work, Plumwood argued that the dominant Western worldview had encouraged us to see nature as a passive object solely for our use and consumption. This perspective has led to the destruction of natural habitats, the extinction of species, and the pollution of our air and water. Plumwood believed that we need to move away from this anthropocentric view of the world and towards a more biocentric perspective that acknowledges the intrinsic value of all living beings.
One of Plumwood's most influential works is her essay "Being Prey," She describes her experience of being attacked by a crocodile while canoeing in the Australian wilderness. Plumwood survived the attack, but she came away from the experience with a deep sense of the interconnectedness of all living beings. She saw herself not as a master of the natural world but as a small part of a larger ecosystem, subject to the same forces that govern the lives of all creatures.
While we understand climate crisis is an environmental problem, ecocriticism gives a broader understanding. Through an ecocritical lens, we learn that a grave issue like climate crisis is also a cultural problem. Ecocritics offer a more holistic experience of the case by examining the cultural values, beliefs, and practices contributing to climate change. To note, Timothy Morton, a postmodernist ecocritic, who has written extensively on the cultural roots of the climate crisis, has one of his key arguments about our society’s obsession with individualism and consumerism, which has contributed to the ecological problems we face today.
According to Morton, our cultural obsession with individualism and consumerism is rooted in a deep-seated belief in human exceptionalism. This belief holds that humans are fundamentally different from and superior to all other life forms. This has led us to view nature as something to be dominated and exploited for our purposes rather than to be respected and protected.
At the same time, our consumerist culture has created an insatiable demand for more and more goods and services, which requires ever-increasing amounts of natural resources and energy. This has led to a vicious cycle of environmental degradation as we continue to extract and consume more and more resources at an unsustainable rate.
Morton argues that the only way to address the climate crisis is to fundamentally shift our cultural values and beliefs away from individualism and consumerism and towards a more interconnected and interdependent worldview. This requires us to recognize that humans are not separate from nature but are deeply embedded in and dependent on the natural world.
In brief, the arts, humanities, and cultural sectors are critical in raising awareness about the climate crisis and promoting a more sustainable future. Through their ability to communicate the situation's urgency and encourage critical thinking and ethical reflection, the humanities can help create a more just and equitable world in which human well-being and environmental health are intertwined
