Creativity vs. climate change?

Mar 28, 2008

Artist Chris Jordan gave a talk at the uber-inspirational 2008 TED conference. His work is based on a fear of what he calls “cultural anaesthesia” – a state of mental paralysis when our brains can’t make sense of the “enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming” society we live in.

For instance, “Plastic Cups” is actually made up of one million small photographs of plastic cups, which is, rather appallingly, the amount used by US airlines every day (that’s 27,000 in the time it’s taken you to read this sentence). (Incidentally, if you’d like to be even more appalled, read some hard-hitting truths about the environmental damage caused by plastic in one of this month’s Do More actions: “Easy on the plastic bags”).

Jordan is trying to use the raw material of data to create art we can feel so it matters to us more. He wants to help us get back our sense of outrage or grief so we can face the big question: “how do we change?”

The issue of Climate Change paralyses many of us with anxiety or overpowers us with statistics. The scale of potential devastation is too massive to contemplate (billions of climate refugees, wars, famines, deaths, economic collapse) and so the problem becomes abstract and meaningless. It’s hard to care about something we don’t connect with.

We know that big issues, events or truths are more digestible and understandable in smaller more personal packages. But creative work like Jordan’s is powerful because it simplifies and sharpens these issues, making them into something meaningful.

In it’s own way, Green Thing is trying to use creativity to inspire people to think and act differently and so change their own behaviour to live more sustainably.

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the creative world because it’s the greatest challenge facing the planet. Creativity is an incredibly powerful thing because the biggest barrier to change is public engagement and action - governments and business will follow where voters and consumers lead them. So we all need to get more creative about climate change, and do it soon.