Arizona Humanities kicked off Climate Conversations last Thursday, a monthly series that discusses the climate crisis and how it intersects with the human experience.
The first speaker was Sir Jonathan Bate, author and scholar who brings a fresh perspective on how to combat the climate crisis.
While others view climate change through a purely scientific lens, Bate uses the humanities to address this problem.
“I wanted to suggest that there are three areas in particular in which the arts and humanities can help us address crises,” Bate said. ”They can bring to the crisis narrative stories, they can bring emotional engagement of a kind that we don’t have in relation to abstract statistics, and they can bring a sense of temporal history.”
For many, the discussion of climate change has always been about cold, hard facts, but Bate said “We need to do more than provide facts and evidence.”
Julianne Cheng, program manager for Arizona Humanities, said the team is honored to have Bate to provide insight at the event and give viewers an “engaging and approachable delivery of a complex topic.”
“We see the evidence of climate change in the news every day. We see data and statistics, and we hear about the grim reports,” Cheng said. “We ultimately want to encourage the community to join in the conversation and promote civic engagement on environmental issues.”
At the virtual event, Bate asked audience members to be influenced by emotion and instinct, and by the simple power of narrative and storytelling.
He presented examples of different books such as “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson, “We Are The Weather: Saving The Planet Begins at Breakfast” by Jonathan Safran and more.
All of these pieces of literature have helped achieve a change in public policies in one way or another.
Bate said he first became interested in climate change and sustainability when he began to read William Wordsworth, an english romantic poet who specialized in nature poetry in the 18th century.
Bate then broadened his reading diet to topics of climate change, green thinking and sustainability, which led him to talk about the problems our planet was facing in a new and engaging way.
“Back in the 1980s, there was lots of interesting work going on in literary studies. But it tended to be in feminism and postcolonialism. People writing about social issues, that nature, the environment just wasn’t really looked up,” Bate said.
When he recognized a gap to be filled, Bate wrote two books, “Romantic Ecology” and “The Song of the Earth,” and used them as a platform for ecocriticism, the study of connections between literature and the environment.
Facts and data fall short when making a decision or changing minds, Bate explained.
“One of the lessons of war of great generals is that you need to win the hearts and minds of people. We need to do more than provide facts and evidence,” Bate said.
People tend to tune themselves out when they are only bombarded with news, facts and data. “If you have a narrative or a story, that can engage people more emotionally,” Bate said.
Members of the audience were able to connect with Bate’s words and learn more about the relationship between humanities, arts and climate.
“It was fascinating to learn how much art, drama, literature, and philosophy have become a powerful medium for those concerned about our changing climate to utilize,” said one audience member.
Another participant commended Bate on his “grace in dealing with a frightening subject.”
Bate told the viewers why humanities are crucial to understanding and addressing climate issues that we face today. He used heart-rending stories that have an emotional effect and long lasting impact on human minds.
“What I’m really trying to suggest here is that we can look to examples from the past, in order to address the problems of the present, for the purpose of building a better future, a more sustainable way of living on our warming planet.”
Climate Conversations will host another virtual event, “Bridging Law and Our Natural Resources, Yesterday and Today,” on Oct. 6 with speaker Dr. Michael Brescia. Registration is open on the Arizona Humanities website.
Contact the reporter at fgalanma@asu.edu
