Climate Crisis and Creativity

The climate is in crisis. We are in what Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac call the ‘critical decade’: we act now, or risk losing our planet. The scale and speed of the climate crisis inspires differing responses, from denial to despair. How do we respond to an existential threat? It is challenging to find the language and the concepts to encompass its enormity. The facts are there, but the response is piecemeal, and there is no current prospect of the radical change called for by climate scientists. These issues need urgent discussion.

We are a group of writers and academics based at The Open University, committed to exploring the relationship between creativity and the climate crisis, with an emphasis on storytelling and communication. The stories we tell about the climate crisis matter. Miles (2010) suggests that contemporary art dealing with climate change can contribute to a shift in consciousness and lead to a more sustainable way of living. While science is without doubt a process of discovery, the arts serve as another way to acquire and interpret knowledge of the world, to engage our emotions, personalise big issues and persuade us to think and act differently.