Climate crisis is a cultural emergency: Creative mindsets for the 2020s
This is an open letter to musicians, creatives, and artists of all kinds who know climate action is crucial but haven’t yet made it part of their mission.
What began as a blog about a course I took has sparked deeper and wider study. The following is my attempt to understand how the Western, white culture that I am a part of is fuelling the climate emergency. I’m also trying to learn what I can do to help make the future sustainable, just, and vibrant. To give you some context and define some terms, I am a straight, white man with Christian heritage living on Haida territory in a place currently called British Columbia. The culture I critique is not Indigenous. The cultural emergency I describe stems from Western society and values that I have participated in. Extractive capitalism and colonization have caused unimaginable harm to people of the global majority. The climate crisis is a product of Western culture and its quest for endless economic growth paid for by the biosphere, other cultures, spiritual traditions, and humans it deems less worthy. Writing is how I learn. I write in the hope of shifting this culture, this Western society, away from its legacy of death. Please see the list of resources at the end of this post, where I’ve included links to movements, activists, and thinkers from marginalized communities and other traditions.
If you’d like to listen to this article instead of read, please click the player below (Duration: 31:36).
“Once you’re a pickle, you can’t be a cucumber again.”
I found out about global warming when I was nine. On the screen in my school classroom, I watched a heat map of the Earth blossom into yellows, oranges, and reds. The narrator told us about the dangers of the greenhouse effect and, among other problems, the speed of Amazon deforestation. I became concerned about the environment.
Until a few years ago, I felt my ecological concern like it was a mild toothache. A toothache is a clear sign of trouble, but most days it’s easier to ignore the pain than to go to the dentist. To me, climate change was something worrisome that came on the news sometimes, but it didn’t seem like I could do anything useful. At any point along the way, if you had asked me whether I cared about the environment, I’d say absolutely yes. I love being out in nature. I didn’t litter. And if the glaciers were melting, I thought, I’m sure scientists, industries, and world leaders would figure it out. Everyone breathes the same air, so obviously they’d work together over the long term to avoid catastrophe. Wouldn’t they?
Narrator: They would not.
Instead, there has been a severe lack of imagination, courage, and, perhaps most importantly, political will to implement long-term solutions. The global climate problem is becoming exponentially worse, and I’ve watched as global warming became climate change and then the climate crisis, which is now an emergency.
As the stories of ever more outrageous climate breakdown flowed across my screens, and as powerful people continued to evade responsibility, my lifelong toothache of concern grew into the kind of acute, festering pain that needs emergency dental surgery. All of a sudden, my worry became outrage and grief.
When the pain got too high – sometime in 2018, after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published their infamous report about the 2020s being the last decade to avoid catastrophe – I avoided most news about the environment and most opportunities for direct action. This was a highly effective coping mechanism to protect my mental health.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent the first half of my thirties recovering from and managing flare-ups of a chronic illness that still saps a lot of my energy. My body yells at me every day about how fragile and mysterious life is and how much more equitable and vibrant the world could be, if enough of us want it. As a musician, I have written a few nature-themed pieces and participated in movements at some of the right moments – helping out with the local Climate Strike march led by students in 2019, for example.
The growth curve of my concern for the global climate and my early attempts to be a good person to the environment.
Behind all this, a deep sense of climate melancholy has set in. My appreciation for nature’s beauty is now tinged with a sense of loss. Fundamentally, my relationship with the environment has changed. As nature lives and dies, so do we.
Maybe you see yourself in parts of this story. I know that some friends, family, and colleagues are following similar emotional paths, because when I talk to them I hear frustrations, laments, and a fair amount of cursing. A lot of latent climate stress turns out to be unexpressed grief and outrage. If this describes you, as it does me, we can no longer compartmentalize climate change from the rest of our lives. Like me, you might need to find a way to integrate what you know into what you do. Action is the only anaesthetic available.
I want to share some ideas that are helping me develop an honest climate mindset. I think ideas like these will lead to more empowering, effective artistic practices and greater impact – artistically, culturally, and environmentally. Whatever your field, you and your collaborators now need to reckon with the enormous scale, speed, and risk of climate breakdown. The physical solutions needed are equally gigantic. But they are also relational. The climate emergency is, first and foremost, a people problem. The tools are ready, and our skills are ready, but it is up to you and me to decide what to do with them, and, crucially, to choose how we will work together. Our collective effort starting today will decide whether we leave a just, vibrant, and sustainable place for our descendants and all life.
It’s time to make climate action part of your mission.
Climate Intelligence and Action for Artists
Learning about world-wrecking issues is a downer unless you have co-conspirators, a.k.a. a community of support. That’s why, in June 2021, I took a course called Climate Intelligence & Action for Artists.
The California-based Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music hosted about 35 composers for two days of online presentations and discussions. Robert Davies, a physicist and science communicator at the University of Utah, spoke about what the climate crisis is and what mindset we can bring to the emergency as artists. The course helped me re-frame the way I think about climate change and has helped my thinking continue to evolve.
Some of these observations come out of my work in tourism, communication, marketing, and music. I’ve started talking about the climate in mediums ranging from business writing to social media to blogs to music to radio.
But I’ve only just begun. I’m grateful to Robert Davies for many of the insights I write about below, and to composer Gabriela Lena Frank for hosting the course and founding an academy that makes these conversations possible. Any errors are mine, not theirs.
This is a long post, so bookmark it to revisit later. You can also jump to different sections.
Mindset #1: This is a cultural emergency
“Climate change is a cultural challenge far more than it is a technical challenge.”
On paper, humanity has had enough scientific knowledge about our impact on the global climate and biosphere to respond to this problem for decades – maybe even a century. The greenhouse effect was first discovered in 1856 by Eunice Foote, a woman who has, until recently, not received this credit. In the following years and decades, other scientists confirmed Foote’s discovery that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would heat up the planet. Data began to corroborate findings like these in the 1950s, and major reports were published and presented to leaders in the U.S. in the 70s and 80s. In 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen testified to the U.S. Congress that the “greenhouse effect is here.”
In the shortest possible way, let me relay the current scientific knowledge about climate change and what to do about it:
The Earth is warming because of human activity, which is disrupting the climate, with extreme risks for all people. Humans can stop the warming by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The climate emergency is, in essence, no more complicated than that. People made the mess, and people can clean it up. The risks are growing exponentially as we delay.
“Why would you have allowed this to happen?”
The climate crisis has been well defined for a long time. Many solutions or paths toward solutions have been available for much of that time. So why hasn’t the crisis been avoided? The cultural emergency is why. At least, it is the reason that helps me understand what needs to be done, and how I might help.
But what is the cultural emergency? I propose this definition.
The cultural emergency is the combination of human values, relationships and actions that enable the climate crisis.
The evidence of cultural emergency is inaction on the climate emergency even when we know how to address it.
The way to stop the cultural emergency, then, is to normalize radical climate action. Normalizing climate action will enable people and systems to properly respond to the life-or-death climate crisis.
Please note that I’m speaking specifically about the culture I am most familiar with as a straight, white man with a Christian upbringing in Canada watching this emergency unfold across North America and much of the Western world. No doubt other intersections of identity will find common ground, but this is my perspective.
The cultural emergency gains momentum from a spin-cycle of fear and doubt. Reducing emissions requires change, and people hesitate to change when they are doubtful. The climate crisis is scary, and it is very easy to sow doubt when people are afraid. Studying the climate challenge reveals that an honest response will require massive action, especially across North America, where, for a shrinking but still large number of people, life is comfortable. It sometimes seems that scale of change requires either trust in the systems that brought us here or revolution. Lacking trust, the prospect of revolution can keep you up at night.
It’s easy to see why trust is lacking when governments impoverish the public to keep the emergency burning by funding oil and gas extraction. Incredibly, companies like Shell and its peers can lie about pollution and hide evidence of global warming for decades, rely on public subsidies, cut workforces, and then ask the public to clean up the hundreds of thousands of well sites in Western Canada, for example. Climate doubt has had massive financial backing too. Fossil fuel companies have spent billions of dollars sowing doubt through PR campaigns and advertising. A little doubt goes a long way. Fossil fuel friendly messages sprinkled into ads before a movie, or in political speech, or a news report, a Facebook meme, or in something your neighbour says about “those damn environmentalists” all allow people to rationalize their inaction. Doubt makes denial easy – until disaster strikes.
Climate-driven disasters are becoming harder to ignore, but it’s clear that the most wealthy among us are desperate to maintain course, judging by the amount spent on advertising and disinformation campaigns. Yet I can’t lay all of the blame at the feet of corporations. The climate emergency is a people problem, and humanity is a condition I share with the billionaires and prime ministers. There has not been enough public pressure to force change. Many of the non-wealthy are desperate to maintain course too, because life has become more precarious under extractive capitalism as wealth inequality increases. Our comfort is fragile, and we know it.
Humans are emotional creatures. It is often difficult to have honest conversations about the climate, and, I want to be clear, your emotions about climate change are valid. Our responses to the problem touch every part of life and relationships, and when grief and anger come to the surface, that is when we most need mutual support. Storytelling, creativity, writing, music, and art are powerful agents for trust-building and processing emotion, and that’s one reason I do this.
At the same time, it is necessary to make tangible, material improvements in the lives of the most vulnerable people and those in precarious situations. That is why climate justice is linked to racial justice, social equity, decolonization, and many other movements.
Today, no one reading this can claim ignorance. The cultural emergency is here, and the evidence is apathy toward injustice and catastrophe. Let’s normalize radical climate action.
Mindset #2: Radical responses to an emergency are sensible
Every molecule counts. All actions that reduce emissions are helpful, because this is an emergency. There are gigatonnes of debates online about which environmental actions are most helpful. Personal responsibility vs. collective responsibility. Electric vehicles vs. public transit. Stop flying forever vs. buy carbon offsets when you do. Learn to eat vegan vs. learn to grow your own food. Solar vs. wind vs. thermal vs. hydro vs. tidal vs. biomass vs. hamster wheels.
Learn about these problems, but don’t let the debates derail you. I have opinions about all of these issues, and maybe you do too. But guess what? Right now, we need every solution that reduces emissions. There is plenty of room for debate about climate solutions at a macro scale – debates nations should have been having for decades about how to better equip communities to decarbonize by becoming far less reliant on fossil fuels. But here we are. Emissions continue to rise, drilling and fracking continue to be approved, and governments continue to buy pipelines, even though most of these are destined to become stranded assets.
At this point, defending oil and gas exploration is radical. Buying a pipeline is ludicrous, and so is Canada’s emissions trajectory, which is increasing and the worst among its G7 peers. These outcomes are incompatible with a survivable world.
On the contrary, every molecule of emissions counts toward further warming. We must immediately stop filling the atmosphere with carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gases.
It is not radical to want to survive. It is not radical to want our biosphere to be healthy, or to avoid further mass extinctions. It is not radical to want our descendants to have clean water or to prevent heat waves from killing people.
Climate action is sensible, and every molecule counts.
Mindset #3: Rely on resolve more than hope
“We don’t worry about whether it’s doable or not. It’s not an answerable question.”
In an emergency, we don’t ask whether something can be done, we ask what needs to be done. And then we do it. That’s why the climate mindset is not primarily about hope or despair. It’s about resolve.
All musicians are familiar with resolve. We are athletes of the small muscles. No one can be proficient at an instrument, let alone a professional, without spending consistent hours in the practice room. Dedication brings change over time, and we have first-hand experience in this. Small, repeated actions are worth far more than their sum.
To continue being honest with ourselves about what climate change truly means, we need resolve. It’s so easy to swing from hope to despair and back, even multiple times a day if you work on the internet, because there is always good news and bad news.
The bad news: You and I are probably not as concerned about climate change as we need to be. The crisis will likely get exponentially worse for you, everyone you love, and billions of people you will never meet unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, if not eliminated, and fast.
The good news: The worst can be avoided. With your help, you, your children, and especially their descendants can avoid the biggest risks of climate change, so long as we have the resolve to do something about it now and don’t give up.
Don’t rely on hope (by assuming someone else will figure it out) or stay in despair (by giving up with the belief that we can’t possibly solve this).
All emotions are valid, but resolve will get us through.
Mindset #4: Sustainable, just, and vibrant
“The goal of climate activism is to create a sustainable, just, and vibrant space for humanity.”
A sustainable, just, and vibrant space is one that meets the needs of all, within the means of our living planet. Climate activism is no longer about “saving the Earth.” The Earth will be fine. Tardigrades, at least, will survive. Today’s movement, as I understand it, is about human beings and our relationships with one another and the biosphere.
I’ve long suspected that, on the whole, humanity already has the material means to solve the biggest problems. There is enough food that no one should starve. There is enough shelter for people to be housed. There is even enough energy to keep everyone warm, and enough time to rest and replenish. There would quickly be enough vaccines for everyone too, if global capitalism and billionaires like Bill Gates were not clutching control, profit, and copyright so tightly. This broken system continues to cause death by COVID and climate alike.
A sentiment I often see in the chronic illness community online is a sense of lost potential, a tragic, unnecessary waste of skill and talent.
It's absurd how much talent there is in our community that is utterly squandered because of all the people who couldn't be bothered to help us. None of this was inevitable.
— Thane Black (@thane_black) June 27, 2021
Extinctions are not inevitable either. Artists can imagine better futures. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” as anti-racism advocate Andre Henry says. Let’s take some creative responsibility and illustrate what’s next.
Move toward a sustainable, just, and vibrant space for humanity.
Mindset #5: Climate is your new context
From now on, no matter your field, the climate crisis is the context for your work and your relationships.
Climate crisis is the background radiation in relationships and in our cultural spaces. Today, truthful stories come from perspectives that treat the climate crisis as an emergency. The fullest empathy and compassion cannot be given without recognizing that many people, to paraphrase youth climate activist Katie Eder, are feeling climate melancholy. This is the zeitgeist.
Author Kim Stanley Robinson describes the pervasive climate dread in terms of a “structure of feeling.” Ecocide is the backdrop to modern interpretations of history and politics. The climate crisis shapes how I view all the other bits of information I take in, including the rising gap between rich and poor, the ways people choose to travel, the music I listen to, and the things my peers say about their hopes and challenges.
Being honest about the climate isn’t pure suffering, either. Honesty can remove burdens. Having a more coherent framework through which to interpret climate news has relieved some anxiety, even as my concern is higher than ever. Group solidarity has helped more than anything. It is healing to know that there are dozens, and probably thousands or millions, of people having similar thoughts and feelings.
Taking the climate seriously also brings my work into sharper focus. I can’t help feeling a sense of purpose that outweighs some of the ego-driven aspects of music-making or writing. It matters less whether a piece succeeds or fails, or whether someone is seen to have more skill than I. What matters is transforming the definitions of success across society.
For artists, “success becomes about impact instead of prestige," to paraphrase composer and academy founder Gabriela Lena Frank. The arc of a musical life is recalibrated by the contribution to a much greater expression. This is a culture I want to be a part of.
If you are a human being, you can help shift the culture. The problem ahead demands a response from the world’s best musicians and writers – the best of all artistic and creative practices.
To recap these five creative mindsets:
We are in a cultural emergency. For now, I define this as the combination of human values, relationships and actions that enable the climate crisis.
A radical, urgent response to this emergency is sensible.
Creative, compassionate people will need resolve to normalize radical climate action.
The goal is a sustainable, just, and vibrant space for humanity.
The overriding context for creative work is the climate emergency, no matter your field.
If I have any influence at all to push our systems, values, and social norms toward this vision, that is what I want to do with my work. That’s one reason I write about beached whales and make music about the fungal internet of trees. To help myself, and maybe one or two others, see more clearly. To witness the moment and imagine the future. Music and arts will always have intrinsic value. But there is no music on a dead planet.
You and I are in a cultural emergency whether we want to be or not. Let’s get involved.
You can’t do everything. But as David Rose would say to his mother, “Can you do one thing?”
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A simple way to think about climate action
Do one thing you are good at, then tell someone about it.
Start with an area of your life where you feel confident, something that gives you joy. Figure out how that thing is related to the environment. And then make a change to reduce your impact on the climate.
“Do what you are good at” is the personal change part, and “tell someone about it” is the culture-shifting part. You are probably more influential than you think. At this stage, telling others what you’re doing is just as important as reducing emissions, because the actions need to multiply fast. Let’s put our political and financial systems under immense public pressure to treat this as the life-and-death emergency that it is.
Make climate impact part of your artistic mission
Musicians, creatives, communicators, and artists of all kinds: We are very good at telling stories. Our tell-someone-about-it power is very high, and this is our opportunity. If you have been nodding along to this article, you’re ready to integrate climate awareness and action into your work. As some of the people responsible for creativity and community making, we’ve got an important job ahead.
Let’s spend our time on creative projects that are honest about the climate emergency.
This ethic will affect my collaborations going forward. How? Tactics may vary. As a small example, I went on the radio to talk about my chamber orchestra piece, “Trees On A Wire”, and during the interview I decided to bring in the context of the climate emergency. As I was writing the music, I wasn’t treating it as a huge statement against fossil fuels. I didn’t feel like an activist. I just wanted to spend time thinking about music and trees. But when introducing the music to the public, I felt that it was important to at least mention the crisis. It is one of my influences, after all.
I am not suggesting that every new piece of music, concert, or gallery opening needs to hit people over the head with climate doom. Instead I am saying that all of us can integrate the art that brings us joy into our knowledge of and urgency for this cultural and climate emergency. You might find opportunities to talk to the public about what drives your work. Your next grant application might mention the growing impact of climate change on your community. Your ensemble might host a climate-themed concert program to fundraise for those most affected. Your gallery might gather people to talk about their hopes and fears.
Here are some questions to talk about with your collaborators as you plan your next projects:
Is it time for your organization, or you as an individual artist, to declare a climate emergency?
How can you normalize conversations about the climate crisis?
How can you create or program music in a way that is framed by awareness of the climate crisis?
Can you commission new works that serve as a witness to current climate challenges?
Can your storytelling help people imagine a vibrant, sustainable, and just future?
How do you tend to think about the environment, and does that need to change? For example, do you think of nature as romantic, spiritual, interconnected with humanity, something that exists only outside the city, or some combination?
What is your role in direct actions like climate strikes and protests?
Does your arts organization depend on funding from big polluters, and does that match its mission and values?
Does your arts organization measure its carbon footprint and actively work to decrease it?
Can you decouple your artistic impact from your greenhouse gas emissions? (i.e., Do your touring commitments need to change? Can you make your carbon footprint more meaningful?, etc.)
Does your organization have plans to mitigate climate risks in your local community?
How can your community or organization support artists in the event of emergencies like wildfires, floods or other instabilities that are likely to cause chaos?
Let’s make climate impact part of our artistic and creative missions.
Helpful resources for getting started
Culture Declares Emergency – “We are a growing international movement of individuals and organisations in the cultural sector declaring climate and ecological emergency. This means telling the truth, taking action and seeking justice.”
Music Declares – “No music on a dead planet.” I’ve signed this declaration of climate emergency led by U.K. musicians.
Disruption – A 75-minute talk on climate by physicist Robert Davies. It’s an overview of what the climate crisis is and some of the mindset shifts above.
The Uninhabitable Earth – If you need to understand why you aren’t concerned enough, read this.
Climate Anxiety is an Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon – A reminder that climate justice can’t happen without justice for the marginalized.
Why We Need Climate Action Now – This article by Ryan Hunt, President of the BC Museums Association, includes some more thought starters for arts folks.
“What can I do?” Anything. – These ideas for action come from journalist Emily Atkin’s HEATED newsletter.
Land Back Party – “Building a Peoples’ party to engage Settler-to-settler in treaty renewal processes that are #Indigenous led.”
Indigenous Climate Action – “Our work inspires, connects and supports Indigenous Peoples, reinforcing our place as leaders in climate change discourse and driving solutions for today and tomorrow. Our work is grounded in four main pathways: Gatherings, Resources and Tools, Amplifying Voices and Supporting Indigenous Sovereignty.”
Other climate justice voices – These are some of the climate communicators whose work has inspired me. The links go to their Twitter accounts, and most of them have books or other material to help you understand what is happening. They are Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Mary Annaïse Heglar, Prof. Katharine Hayhoe, Edgar McGregor, Catherine Abreu, Aja Barber, and Eric Holthaus.
Composing Earth – This two-year project by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music gathers composers to study the climate emergency and compose pieces in response.
I’ll leave you with some music by Iman Habibi, a Toronto-based composer who is part of Composing Earth. Here’s “Jeder Baum spricht” (Every Tree Speaks).
I’m a composer who writes about music, creativity, climate justice, and chronic illness. Music, Ideas, and Rest, is my occasional email newsletter. This post is free for everyone. To support my work further, please subscribe, send this article to a friend, or contribute through this PayPal link.