The Cultural Challenge of Climate Change

This is not a conventional essay and climate change is not a conventional subject. The issue's editors asked David Buckland and colleagues to “discuss the intersection of art and climate change science and specifically the Cape Farewell project's approach to curating and disseminating this intersection online, in gallery spaces, and in print.” Climate change is a future-truth; what humans are doing now will be realized in twenty to thirty years' time. The Cape Farewell project is a creative action-based research program evolved to pave the way for a sustainable future; in a way, it is an ambition to create the cultural equivalent of mathematical modeling—how to map the near future space from a position of culture, not science. This essay explores the genesis and history of the organization and the work it is currently undertaking, ultimately examining how culture can be a powerful tool to engage civic society with the enormous challenge of climate change.