Monday, October 22, 2007

Chicago Humanities Festival takes on climate change

The theme for this year's Chicago Humanities Festival is The Climate of Concern. An odd choice for a humanities festival? Artistic director Lawrence Weschler explains:
Concern about the changing climate, to be sure, but more generally and broadly about humankind’s place in nature, and the future of that relation. In those days, certainly here in America, the challenge still seemed to be one simply of rousing ourselves to the crisis at hand. We’ve watched in amazement as the discourse has since accelerated: suddenly the specter of global climate disruption and its many interrelated symptoms has become the media flavor of the year (all that noise, paradoxically, threatening to become simply another way in which we cocoon ourselves from the palpable reality of the situation at hand). Still, the challenge grows clearer and more urgent with each passing week: how do we, as a community of fellow humans, come to envision – with lucidity, vigor, and hope — our responsibilities toward each other, our progeny, and the planet?
Its certainly an interesting program. I'll be part of a panel on Sunday, October 29th, looking at climate change images. Stop by and say "hello".

Update: Some coverage of the panel from the Computation Institute Newsletter.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did it go? Did anyone cover the panel's discussions in the local news or online?

I would be really interested to hear all about this, as I think humanity's visual talents need to be harnessed to refine imagery, assist envisioning, support visionary leaders, and give people positive pictures of a better world as we "manage" our lives with climate change.

Scientists and nature lovers spcialise in observing the world as it is. Unfortunately, but understandably, future visions tend to be more apocalyptic (I am still struggling with the gloomy pictures Lovelock and Monbiot paint for my mind's eye, for example) than inspiring.

Images work without language barriers … that, perhaps, is key to inspiring a more global view of our common challenge.

Rob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rob said...

(I haven't yet figured out how to put inline links in these comments so I'm reposting)

It went well. The audience was very interested in hearing more about GW science the the panel's topic about images and global warming.

I haven't seen any extensive coverage. There's a photo with a caption at:
http://www.hpherald.com/pg21.html

Anonymous said...

Next time I shall catch the photo before it disappears, instead of assuming I can return to it!

Do you want to know how to write the HTML code to add a link?

I can try and explain link tags here, or send you an email. The problem with explaining it in blog comments, as I know only too well, is that the blog often strips out key characters to try to make its own sense of things before publishing, or rejects the code entirely for security reasons.

Rob said...

The problem I have is URL's longer then the little comment box like this one which also has the picture:

http://www.ci.uchicago.edu/newsletter/vol1issue3/panel.php

Let me try it as a link:

as a link


If that doesn't work, its also in the update on the original post.

Rob said...

Wait, that was a story. The photo of me and David Archer (I'm sitting down in the background of this photo on the right and David is to my right) is
here