Changing the story. Climate crisis as a crisis of imagination” - Conference

Changing the story. Climate crisis as a crisis of Imagination
EIT Climate-KIC and School of Ecopoetics at the Institute of Reportage
ONLINE CONFERENCE
13 DEC 2021, time: 13:00 - 16:00 (UTC + 1)
The most recent UN Climate Change Conference has clearly demonstrated that the debate about climate urgently requires intervention. To begin with, there is a need for a new, constructive language and adequate metaphors. The ways in which the greatest planetary challenges and their possible solutions are narrated also require rethinking. With this ambitious aim in mind, we have to understand that these new ways of communicating climate-related challenges can only emerge on the intersections of science, literature and art. Creating new, convincing metaphors is possible only if literature becomes receptive to knowledge offered by science. On the other hand, it is impossible to convincingly address the newest scientific developments without the understanding that the rational mind is not the only means of knowing and experiencing reality. Poetry and art also offer important insights into the world. Mutual influence between different disciplines and ways of looking at reality - scientific and poetic - could mark the beginning of a profound transformation of ecological narratives.
Panel 1 13:00 - 14:30 (UTC +1)
On the possibility of alliance between the natural sciences and the arts in counteracting climate change
Julia Fiedorczuk
Piotr Skubała
George Marschal
Moderation: Marta Werbanowska
Panel 2 (14:35 - 16:00) (UTC +1)
How to build, communicate and teach „ecological intelligence”
Aleksandra Gołdys
Eva Meijer
Zoë Skoulding
Moderation: Grzegorz Czemiel
VIDEO LECTURES
„Why science needs art” -Grzegorz Czemiel
• Why science needs art?...
Evidence-based science is our most reliable source of knowledge about the world. Meteorology, oceanography, physics, chemistry and other natural sciences investigate the structure and dynamics of the earth’s climate system, producing a body of research known as climate science. Climate science is the base on which we must build our strategies for counteracting the current planetary emergency. However, as numerous scientists note, scientific data is notoriously difficult to communicate. Dry, scientific language lacks the affective power necessary to have a real effect on a wider audience. In this lecture, botanist and poet Grzegorz Czemiel analyzes the limitations that science encounters in articulating its achievements. The opening of the scientific community to new ways of speaking about the world results not only in building bridges between various disciplines and fields of knowledge, but in the emergence of completely new ways of exploring the world and our place within it.
„On the concept of ecological inteligence” - Julia Fiedorczuk
• On the concept of ecol...
The lecture will attempt to articulate the concept of „ecological intelligence”, which is a concept belonging to „the third culture”, integrating scientific knowledge and the forms of competence developed by literature and art. It is widely understood today that the ecological crisis is primarily the crisis of the imagination; in spite of sufficient knowledge about the planetary emergency, world leaders are not undertaking adequate actions to counteract runaway climate change. The problem is not technical in nature; rather, it consists in a lack of vision. Neither dryly scientific language, nor the technocratic language of institutions can articulate a vision of a truly sustainable culture. „Ecological intelligence” involves ways of knowing which cannot be limited to traditional, instrumental approaches to the environment. This lecture will demonstrate the ways in which art and literature, including poetry, both learn from science and complete it with their own methodologies in such ways as to activate the imagination and empathy.