Through Wind and Ice: Communicating the Climate Crisis

This event is organised by Climate Crisis Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences Network

This presentation draws upon anthropological research on wind power development in Mexico and ice loss in Iceland to highlight alternative forms of climate communication that are research-driven and public-facing.

In October 2020, California experienced its first “gigafire” – a burn event of over 1,000,000 acres; but of course, this is just one instance of climatological precarity among a long and growing list of others. Stories such as these do motivate some people to action. But, we also see that much of the public discourse surrounding environmental deterioration continues to pivot upon policy and science messaging that, while substantively essential, may not always appeal to the affective, sensed or felt dimensions of the environmental harms multiplying around us. In this presentation, we draw from two of our anthropological research projects—the first on wind power development in Mexico and the other on the loss of ice in Iceland—to highlight alternative forms of climate communication that are research-driven and public-facing. Our work on aeolian politics in Mexico and our collaborative text, a “duograph,” begin the discussion and we close with reflections on our August 2019 installation of the world’s first memorial to a fallen glacier, Okjökull.

Read more here: www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/through-wind-and-ice-communicating-the-climate-crisis