‘Art has a big role to play in the fight against climate change’

The Joe Must Go On, by Joe Hakim

Joe Hakim hosted The Culture of Climate Panel at this week’s The Waterline Summit. In this, the first of his new columns for The Hull Story, he reflects on the discussion and explores how art, sport, and science can work together to help us tackle climate change

This week, The Waterline Summit, a series of events, panels and debates about the future of achieving a net-zero carbon economy in the Humber, took place online.

The summit was delivered by Marketing Humber, supported by event partners The University of Hull and Yorkshire Water.

I was tasked with hosting The Culture of Climate Panel as part of the Adaptation & Resilience day. The panel featured four guest speakers; marine biologist Dr Christina Roggatz, historical and cultural geographer Dr Briony McDonagh, artist Kelly Stanford, and Team GB Cyclist Anthony Gill.

We spent the afternoon discussing the role arts and culture has to play in the future of the Humber region’s development and adoption of sustainable technology and green energy.

The panel began with Emma Hardy, MP for Hull West and Hessle, announcing the winners of the Earth 2050 contest, each of whom had their work displayed as part of the summit’s Virtual Art Gallery.

It was fitting to start with an art competition. Access and participation in art, film, music, theatre and sport is fundamental to the heart and soul of communities, and it offers young people a chance to develop essential coping mechanisms for life.

And when tackling the consequences of climate change, taking such a gigantic and seemingly insurmountable subject and making it real and applicable to people on a local level is a monumental task.

As Dr Christina Roggetz pointed out to me, it’s about making people understand that climate change isn’t just something that affects the Great Barrier Reef; it’s not happening in some indefinable ‘over there’, it’s happening right here on our doorstep.  

I’ve immersed myself in popular culture pretty much all my life. Films, literature and music have always served as a filter – and sometimes a barrier – between myself and ‘reality’.

As with most people who develop a love/obsession for arts and culture from a young age, I understood on some level that all narratives, even the most out-there and fantastical ones, serve to inform us, help us understand the societies and communities we live in, and the circumstances which shape our world.

Put it this way, I learned more about the socio-economic fallout of tensions between the USA and USSR at the height the Cold War in the pages of 2000AD than I ever did at school. And I’ve had a fondness for the post-apocalyptic sub-genre of sci-fi that I can trace back to childhood exposure to John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior.

In a year defined by a real global pandemic, catastrophic climate events, and deepening societal inequality and upheaval, I have to admit that my enthusiasm for zombie outbreaks and alien invasions has completely evaporated. Because they’re a cop-out.

They present disaster and catastrophe as something sudden: you open your door one morning and everything has changed; zombies are on the street or the saucers are raining down death from the sky.

‘If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that disaster and catastrophe can be slow and gradual’

They speak to popular culture’s current grim fascination with an atavistic slide to an imagined past of frontier, survivalist-living, everyone for themselves. But if we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that disaster and catastrophe can be slow and gradual. In the great virus outbreak of 2020, the real monsters left in the wake of the pandemic are loneliness, social-isolation and poverty.

Connection and community are essential to our survival as a species, not a well-stocked bunker.

To say we face challenging times is the understatement of the 21st century, so it was great to hear the speakers at The Culture of Climate Panel focus on positive, solution-based approaches to the future of collaboration between the artistic and cultural sector and the scientific and technology sector.

THE CULTURE OF CLIMATE PANEL: Clockwise, from top left, Dr Christina Roggatz, Anthony Gill, Joe Hakim, Dr Briony McDonagh, and Kelly Stanford

Although I was attending in a purely functional host-capacity (keep things moving, tell some bad jokes to fill in the gaps, keep an eye on the time) I was also genuinely curious as to what the speakers had to say from a creative standpoint.

Every aspect and layer of our artistic and cultural institutions – venues, organisations, freelance artists/technicians – is poised on the edge of a precipice. Carving out a career in the creative industries was always difficult at the best of times, but now it’s next to impossible. And the future of the sector – along with everything else including education – is shrouded in the mists of an unknowable future. But one thing is certain, we need to collaborate and communicate.

A great example of this is the work of Dr Briony McDonagh, Reader in Historical Geography at the University of Hull, and Director of the Doctoral College. During her panel she spoke about bringing Hull’s cultural heritage to life through technology.

Working alongside Dr Stewart Mottram and Dr Chris Skinner in the University’s Energy and Environment Institute, Dr McDonagh collaborated with gaming and digital experience company BetaJester to create ‘By The Rising Tide of The Humber,’ a VR project aimed at bringing literature and technology together to explore our region’s historical relationship to flooding.

And when talking about Risky Cities, a new Arts and Humanities-funded project aimed at educating communities about flood risks and resilience, she threw down a challenge: where are the stories and narratives that explore humanity living with and mitigating climate change, as opposed to being wiped out by it?

‘WE NEED STORIES THAT EXPLORE HUMANITY LIVING WITH AND MITIGATING CLIMATE CHANGE, NOT BEING WIPED OUT BY IT’: Dr Briony McDonagh

Dr Christina Roggatz is a scientist at the Energy and Environment Institute, where she investigates the impact of climate change on the chemical communication of life in our oceans.

Marine organisms rely on chemicals to smell their way around, find mates and food, sense approaching predators or defend themselves. Ocean acidification, a hidden effect of increasing carbon dioxide levels in our oceans, can significantly affect these smell or defence chemicals.

Dr Roggatz works on improving our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and consequences of these changes and what it means for the wider ecosystem.

I asked her how she managed to maintain a positive outlook when dealing with the effects of climate change on our oceans and bodies of water:

‘The numbers, facts and predictions we have to date about climate change and its effects, especially in our oceans, are grim, but we should see them as a wake-up call. There have been enough negative headlines, to a point where many people become indifferent or even annoyed of hearing the supposedly ever same story.

‘Climate change is real and happening, but we are beyond the point of people being scared by a negative outlook. In my eyes, this means we need to change the tone and inspire people into wanting to help protect this wonderful planet Earth with all its fascinating inhabitants.

‘Humanity has put us into this situation, but equally we can all do our bit to slow the change and give ourselves and the environment time to adapt and become more resilient. What keeps me positive is the enthusiasm and solution-oriented thinking of the younger generation that I come across when communicating my research.

‘It’s these young minds who recently energized the climate change debate and keep reminding us to change our habits by questioning all aspects of daily life. This motivation is vital to drive community-based change as it all starts at home with us.’

‘YOUNG MINDS HAVE ENERGIZED THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE’: Dr Christina Roggatz

You're clearly passionate about children and young people and the role they have to play in educating communities on the effects of climate change. How well informed do you think children are about these issues in general? Do you worry about the influence of social media and misinformation?

‘Children and young adults are key in driving community-based change to combat climate change. Their uncomplicated ideas and visions, combined with lots of energy, provide inspiration and can push the more settled and lethargic parts of communities, admittedly us adults, to act.

‘But we need to listen and help them to find suitable and meaningful ways to engage. Through documentaries like Blue Planet II and coverage of climate change in the media, the young generation is very well informed.

‘It often only takes one emotional encounter with an animal or idea they care about and they want to know more… In a time of screaming headlines and rapid communication through social media, there is unfortunately a lot of misinformation in circulation.

‘The only way to combat this is by providing clear, accurate, easy-to-understand and relevant facts and information to people and especially children.

‘This is the aim of the latest exhibit at Hull’s aquarium The Deep entitled Changing Seas, which I’m involved in. It explains the hidden climate change effect of ocean acidification and how it affects animals like the yellow dog-faced pufferfish swimming in that very tank. Clear science communication through such an exhibit, as well as additional online resources like infographics and video, is essential to provide reliable information for the public.’

Manchester-based artist and science communicator Kelly Stanford is focused on creating artworks that embody scientific concepts in an accessible, aesthetically pleasing manner. She works in collaboration with researchers all over the world to create interdisciplinary projects which are used to communicate science to the public and inspire people to get involved in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). 

During her panel she spoke about her work with Dan Lewis that featured in the Waterline Summit online virtual gallery along with the winners of the competition. She’s currently doing a MSc in Physical Geography at the University of Hull, researching new methods of communicating flood resilience using card games, stressing the importance of artists working with communities and young people to make ideas and information accessible.

SCIENCE AS ART: Kelly Stanford

Anthony Gill has worked at British Cycling for 12 years following a successful career racing bikes on the velodrome.

He is now leading the Yorkshire team for British Cycling, which is focused on working collaboratively with key partners to help develop the following areas: creation of a regional strategy to help build more robust pathways into cycling; creating more talent; developing a more inclusive and diverse workforce; and helping to create more accessible places to ride. He is also the national delivery lead for Diversity and Inclusion at British Cycling.

As someone who is guilty of leaving sports out of the cultural equation (sorry), I asked Anthony if there needs to more collaboration between the worlds of art and sport, particularly as means of spreading a message. 

‘Yes, this is a key aspect of joining up differing work areas in order to make people’s experience of art, sport, and travel more enjoyable. I think most people would agree that if you are cycling in nice parks and on enjoyable routes that have plenty to see and do you are more likely to want to do it more often.

‘The solar system ride just outside York is a great example of where this can be seen. An easy 11km ride on a cycle path in the countryside that is a scale model of our solar system. Each planet has a lovely sculpture along the way. This mix of art, science and physical activity attracts families and commuters alike. We need to get better at joining these worlds up to ultimately create nicer places to live for all residents living in them.’

As families and communities face unprecedented financial hardships, I asked Anthony about how we bridge the gap of certain sports, such as cycling, needing specialised equipment. 

‘Equipment is an obvious barrier to participation. We know that in the Yorkshire and Humber region bike ownership stands at around 44 per cent (inline with the national average). This means more people don’t own bikes than do.

‘We have started to test the idea of community-owned bike hubs in some of our towns and cities. We hope this will provide a valuable resource for local residents and will help them access bikes on a regular basis without the need of the initial financial outlay.

‘More and more towns and cities are also testing ideas around accessible bike hire, but again this needs to be part of a wider plan of activity programmes and high-quality cycling infrastructure to be a success.

‘Over the past six months the amount of bike sales has doubled - this could start to show that given the right conditions of more time at home with family and quieter roads people are keen and willing to turn to the bike as a form of exercise and transport.’

At the beginning of the panel, I said I hoped it would be the first step to greater conversation and collaboration between the science and technology sectors in the Humber region and the creative and cultural industries.

While there are still huge unanswered questions around the legacy of City of Culture in Hull, there’s no denying that we continue to innovate and create incredible art. And allegiances and team loyalties aside, our city has produced and continues to produce athletes and sporting talent.

As we all head into an uncertain future, our region’s key industries must work together to promote participation and opportunities for everyone, starting with our young people. The story begins here.