Citizens’ Climate Radio Ep. 67: Experiencing climate data through art

Citizens’ Climate Radio is a monthly podcast hosted by CCLer Peterson Toscano. Browse all our past episode recaps here, or listen to past episodes here, and check out the latest episode in the post below. 
 

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How can we help the public embrace the science that reveals our climate has been changing dramatically and very quickly? And more than that, how do we make them feel and experience the data so profoundly that it causes them to respond? 

These are the questions UK-born artist Caroline Roberts brings to this month’s episode of Citizens’ Climate Radio, and to her art installation, the present of my life looks different under trees. This piece is an immersive installation of cyanotypes that has been exhibited at BOX13 ArtSpace and HCC Southwest in Houston, TX.

Originally from the UK, Caroline moved to Houston, Texas, 18 years ago. She explains that a story about drowned forest thousands of years ago in the UK, along with recent flooding in her city, inspires and informs her artistic work. 

“The installation consists of 60 11-feet high panels, each one representing a year of Houston weather data and encircling the Back BOX like a grove of trees. Each varies in width based on the rainfall intensity, as measured by the number of days on which the total rainfall was greater than three inches: the point at which street flooding occurs. The panel color, from ice-blue to blue-black, represents the average nighttime temperature for that year. At first glance the immersive nature of this cyanotype installation provides a cool environment as Houston temperatures fall into autumn. However, a closer look gives the bigger picture: more shocking than any graph, this forest-like environment shows the story of rising temperatures and intensifying rain events.”

While Caroline started her career as a chemical engineer with the faith that science would save the environment, she soon realized that many fields and talents could contribute to environmental advocacy. Caroline has always relied on science, and after crunching the numbers about the future of the country’s coastline due to climate-related flooding, she found herself in a state of horror and shock for weeks.

Caroline wanted people’s jaws to drop when they saw her art, which visualizes the overwhelming information she has seen predicted for the near future. As environmental conditions over time have grown worse, her installation’s fabric coincides, growing heavy and darker and colder as the fabric winds through history and to the present.

Caroline says that viewers were “gobsmacked” by her forest of fabric, and hopes that all who see her piece will contemplate the view of their own life under trees.

For more information on the data behind this installation please continue to the story and data page.

The Art House

For this month’s segment, you will hear a dramatic reading of Kamil Haque’s play, “Confessions of the Little Match Girl to the Star.” Kamil explains that in creating this piece, he chose to fracture a fairy tale, a nursery rhyme and the calling out to one’s “mama.” These common symbols of innocence form the spine of the play. 

To create the heart and soul of this piece, Kamil examined and extracted pieces from the transcripts of Greta Thunberg’s 2019 U.N.’s Climate Action Summit and George Floyd’s final moments in 2020. Through these channels he explores how two people on opposite ends of the age and racial spectrum express grief and anguish at their circumstances. How might their spirit and the spirit of their message live on literally and metaphorically?

“Confessions of the Little Match Girl to the Star” was performed at The BTS Center’s Climate Change Theatre Action 2021 event. It is read by Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, a public health expert and the chair of Citizens’ Climate Education board. 

You can hear standalone versions of The Art House at Artists and Climate Change.

Good News Report

Our good news story this month comes from Solemi Herandez, the Southeast coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby. She tells us about her experiences at COP26 and shares good news about Climate Empowerment Article 12 of the Paris agreement. Solemi is hopeful for the future because of the involvement that she saw at COP26, and is hoping that more citizens will get engaged in climate work. 

Citizens’ Climate Radio Ep. 66: Hospitality in a Time of Climate Change

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We live in a world with stronger and more frequent extreme weather events. As a result, giving and receiving hospitality is becoming the new normal for humans. Citizens’ Climate Radio host Peterson Toscano speaks with public theologian Jayme R. Reaves and public health expert Dr. Natasha DeJarnett (pictured above). What are the risks leading to more displacement? What are the dilemmas and challenges of housing, feeding, and creating more space for people uprooted from homes during extreme weather? And what are some of the creative ways communities provide protection to those temporarily or permanently unhoused? 

Jayme R. Reaves is the director of academic development at Sarum College in Salisbury, England. She teaches in areas such as biblical studies, and feminist and liberation theology. Over the last 20 years, she has worked as a consultant, researcher, lecturer, and facilitator in the U.S., former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain. Her focus internationally has been on the intersections between theology and public issues such as peace, conflict, hospitality, memory, and gender. 

Jayme discusses the roles that scarcity and abundance play in making sure that those most impacted by the environment in the community around us are cared for. She calls on churches to work in their own communities to make congregations aware of sharing with those who don’t have as much. 

Jayme regularly speaks, leads retreats, conducts workshops, and acts as “theologian in residence” with communities who wish to dive deeper into understanding theological frameworks for social justice activism. She’s the author of “Safeguarding the Stranger: An Abrahamic Theology & Ethic of Protective Hospitality” (Wipf & Stock, 2016) and co-editor of “When Did We See You Naked?: Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse” (SCM, 2021). 

Additionally, she co-hosts the podcast Outlander Soul, which looks at the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon with a theological, religious, and spiritual lens and takes seriously the role fiction plays in fans’ lives as a sacred text. Jayme lives in Dorset, England with her partner and two dogs.
 

Dr. Natasha DeJarnett is an assistant professor in the Christina Lee Brown Environment Institute at the University of Louisville Division of Environmental Medicine, researching the health impacts of extreme heat exposure and environmental health disparities. Additionally, she is a professorial lecturer in Environmental and Occupational Health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Previously, Dr. DeJarnett was the interim associate director of Program and Partnership Development at the National Environmental Health Association, leading research, climate and health, and children’s environmental health. 

She also previously served as a policy analyst at the American Public Health Association (APHA), where she led the Natural Environment portfolio, including air and water exposures along with climate change. Dr. DeJarnett is a member of the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, is chair of the Governing Board of Citizens’ Climate Education, a member of the Board of Directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, chair-elect for APHA’s Environment Section, member of the Advisory Board of APHA’s Center for Climate, Health and Equity, a member of the Board of Trustees for the BTS Center, special advisor to the Environmental Health and Equity Collaborative, and the Steering Committee of the International Transformational Resilience Coalition.

Dr. DeJarnett emphasizes that more than ever before, people are being displaced as a result of severe weather phenomena caused by climate change. In 2018, 16 million people were displaced due to climate, 1.2 million of which were American. She points out that in 2020, more hurricanes and tropical storms made landfall than ever before, to the point where letters in the Greek alphabet were being used to name them, as the list of hurricane names had been used up. Dr. DeJarnett says that church communities are presented with the opportunity to provide hospitality more than ever by turning churches into cooling centers, and by educating the community about staying safe through weather phenomena.

To learn more about building community resilience see the US Climate Resilience Toolkit or see how you can get involved with establishing a local or regional Climate Resilience Hub. 

The Art House

Joining us in the Art House is Dr. Krista Hiser with The Ultimate Cli-Fi Book Club. The purpose of the book club is to look at climate-themed literature and consider how it can help us engage differently with interdisciplinary topics and existential threats related to the planetary predicament of climate change. 

In this episode, Krista reflects on Deena Metzger’s novel “A Rain of Night Birds.” 

Dr. Krista Hiser is Professor at Kapiʻolani Community College. Her Ph.D. is in Educational Administration from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She has published works on community engagement, service-learning, organizational change, post-apocalyptic and cli-fi literature. 

In this month’s episode, Krista tells us that the protagonist of “A Rain of Night Birds” is a scientist that also relies on feeling to gauge the environmental phenomena around her. With themes of spiritualism and indigenous culture, this “literature of restoration” focuses on the concept of doing no harm, based on the importance of the world around us.

You can read a written version of Krista’s essay at The Ultimate Cli-Fi Book Club for Sustainability in Higher Education on Medium. 

You can hear standalone versions of The Art House at Artists and Climate Change.

Good News Report

Our good news comes from Anthony Leiserowitz at Yale Climate Connections. In tune with the theme of hospitality, Anthony discusses a disaster resiliency program geared toward Spanish-speaking residents in Sonoma County, California.

Whether people lose power or work as a result of climate and weather disasters, many nonprofits are developing plans and guides to help Spanish speakers in the west prepare. These programs help residents sign up for emergency alerts, prepare for emergencies, and make financial arrangements needed to safely leave during severe weather.

Citizens’ Climate Radio Ep. 65: Extreme Heat and Insurance Solutions

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This month’s episode of Citizens’ Climate Radio includes a discussion with Kathy Baughman McLeod, SVP, as well as Atlantic Council & Director, Adrienne Arsht of the Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. The two discuss the many risks that come with extreme heat, as well as multiple solutions being enacted around the world, including innovative ways to use insurance to change the way we build and respond to extreme weather.

Kathy Baughman McLeod leads the Center’s work to reach one billion people worldwide with climate resilience solutions by 2030. Additionally, she chairs the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance, which partners with climate-forward mayors around the world to appoint Chief Heat Officers. Additionally, Kathy is spearheading the global push to name and categorize heat waves. 

She acknowledges that heat is the silent killer of extreme climate phenomena. Despite being 20 times deadlier than hurricanes, because it is invisible, heat goes vastly unrecognized and delegitimized, compared to other phenomena. As a result, Kathy pushes for taking heat more seriously, whether it’s through “heat-proofing” cities through the use of natural infrastructure, or training employees and employers to recognize the signs of heat sickness.

Kathy was formerly the Global Executive for Environmental and Social Risk at Bank of America, Managing Director for Climate Risk & Resilience at The Nature Conservancy, and a Florida Climate Commissioner. She is the recipient of the Duke University Fuqua School of Business 2021 “Leader of Consequence” award.

Learn more about Kathy and her work to reach one billion people with climate solutions by visiting One Billion Resilient. Follow Kathy on Twitter. 

If you’d like to read more, here are some articles by Kathy and other experts about responding to extreme heat:

The Art House

Joining us in the Art House is Marissa Slaven. In 2019 we featured her in Episode 33 to talk about her young adult climate-themed novel, “Code Blue.” Now Marissa is back with the sequel “Code Red.” She was inspired by her daughter to write this series of eco-fiction thrillers, where a teenage girl and her friends battle climate change.

In this novel, 17-year-old Atlantic “Tic” Brewer and her friends race against the clock to save civilization from climate change. Set within the not-so-distant future, much of the east coast is underwater, and severe climate phenomena pose a constant threat for Tic and her friends.

Peterson sits down with Marissa to talk about the new book and to hear her read an excerpt. To learn more about Marissa and her books, visit Stormbird Press. You can also follow her on Twitter. 

You can hear standalone versions of The Art House at Artists and Climate Change.

Good News Report

Our good news story this month comes from Flannery Winchester, Communications Director at Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Because of the many efforts by CCL volunteers, the needle is moving toward a carbon fee and dividend as one of the ways to address climate change. She talks about the budget reconciliation process and volunteer lobbying.

Additionally, Flannery also highlights the positive media attention, as well as political attention, that a carbon price is receiving from major outlets such as The New York Times and Bloomberg Business. Additionally, Senators like Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse have been vocal in their support of carbon pricing, especially after months of climate-fueled hurricanes, wildfires, and floods.

Dig Deeper

• Building a Resilient Planet
• How the U.S. could be smarter about insuring against extreme weather-related disasters
• Cities Appoint ‘Heat Officers’ In Response to Warming Threat 
• Oil’s Bad, Bad Day
• How Do We Live with Hotter ‘Climate Normals’?
• U.S. Cities Hire specialists to counter climate change as impacts worsen 
• Athens will be the first European city to appoint a Chief Heat Officer”
• Heat is Killing Us and The Economy Too

Citizens’ Climate Radio Ep. 64: Hinduism and LGBTQ climate work

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How does an American Hindu approach the climate crisis? What ancient values and teachings apply to modern life in America today? And how does this relate to LGBTQ issues and public health? Hari Venkatachalam connects his faith, work, heritage, and even his sexual orientation to living in a climate-changed world.

In this episode, Hari reveals how extreme weather, which affects everyone, disproportionally impacts LGBTQ homeless youth. Citizens’ Climate Radio host, Peterson Toscano, explains: 

Up to 40% of youth living on the streets in the United States and Canada are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary. Many of them avoid going to shelters because they assume they will receive the same discrimination and hostility they escaped. This is especially true for transgender and gender non-binary young people. This puts them at extra risk during extreme weather events.

Hari Venkatachalam also talks about his faith and the principles handed down to him from his father. Hari is an active member of Sadhana: A Coalition of Progressive Hindus, and his activism focuses on environmental justice, LGBTQ+ issues, and public health. He currently works in Tampa, Florida as a public health researcher for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Art House

Joining us in the Art House is Dr. Krista Hiser, with the first in a series of an occasional feature called The Ultimate Cli-Fi Book Club. The purpose of the book club is to look at climate-themed literature and consider how it can help us engage differently with interdisciplinary topics and existential threats related to the planetary predicament of climate change. 

In this episode, Krista reflects on the cli-fi novel “Blaze Island” by Catherine Bush, and lets her imagination run wild as she pulls together some of the greatest minds in climate fiction. 

Dr. Krista Hiser is a professor at Kapiʻolani Community College. Her Ph.D. is in Educational Administration from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She has published on community engagement, service-learning, organizational change, post-apocalyptic and cli-fi literature. 

You can read a written version of Krista’s essay at The Ultimate Cli-Fi Book Club for Sustainability in Higher Education on Medium. 

You can hear standalone versions of The Art House at Artists and Climate Change.

Good News Report

Our good news comes from Anthony Leiserowitz at Yale Climate Connections. You will hear about a new fund that aims to bring more people into the climate conversation. 

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