In the announcement to our forthcoming publication On a day like today we just need to look forward… we talk about the world (in terms of energy and climate change) having ‘moved on’ over the past decade. We little imagined that just a couple of months later a war would be raging that would have an enormous and possibly lengthy impact not just on energy prices but on the environment, too.
But that’s a conversation for another day. These words are by way of an introduction to our publication and how we intend to populate it with a collection of thought-provoking and innovative ideas along with some beautiful and equally thought-provoking artwork.
The book is an exploration of the inter-relationships between culture, imagining, energy and creativity. It’s also an exploration of a dilemma. The science of climate change is unassailable: persuading people to make the change necessary to mitigate or even stop it is the uphill battle that continues to confound. Nagging doesn’t work, wagging of fingers and head shaking doesn’t work, facts don’t work. Humans are frightened of (or lazy about?) change and not very good at longterm thinking; politicians say they love change but are afraid of those who don’t and are also very reluctant to embrace longterm thinking. It doesn’t help when the issue becomes a political dog whistle: politicians on the right of the spectrum seem to believe voters will love them if they keep saying that life is perfect, nothing needs to change (it’s all a hoax, apparently).
For a tiny percentage of the world’s population, climate change has already been catastrophic; but for an increasing number it is now palpable. It’s something we can feel, experience, almost touch. It’s staring us in the face, and yet still the reluctance to change is as strong as ever.
We make no pretence that this book will change everything –if only it were that simple, Our desire, however, is to throw away today’s playbook. We want to envision not just change but how to engender and embrace change; we want to explore ways in which creative thinkers and makers can work with those with the facts to create new ways of talking about climate change; we want in these pages to grow hope. To quote from our call for submissions:
‘[We want to] draw inspiration from artists, philosophers, engineers, scientists, community leaders, tinkerers, activists and other energised voices to taste some of the most interesting ideas around energy and creativity. In this publication we seek a…marriage of practical and speculative thought, collisions of the known and the felt and the putative. We are less interested in definitive ‘solutions’ and more interested in narrative, seekings-out, experiment and exploration, and how we nurture dialogue around these most challenging and urgent questions.’
Grand words indeed. Will you help us make it happen? This space is part of the effort, in advance of the submission deadline (May 9) to engender conversation, share ideas, make outrageous proposals, stir up collaboration, and inspire you to invent new proposals for change methodology, and change itself. Why not join us…
Richard Povall & Chloë Uden, Co-editors.