GUY ABRAHAMS CO-FOUNDED CLIMARTE – AN ORGANISATION
HARNESSING THE POWER OF THE ARTS TO INFORM, ENGAGE
AND INSPIRE ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE.GUY ABRAHAMS climarte founder
Why are the arts an effective medium for communicating
ideas around climate change?
The arts can not only show, but they can also make us feel, the very
problems we are facing. They can inspire us to acknowledge that we
are part of nature and not separate from it. Creative thinking and
expression help us to communicate and understand the rich rela-
tionships that exist between all things. These relationships are what
make our world the dynamic, intriguing, challenging and wondrous
experience that it is. As interpreters of this experience, artists and
their art have a major role in encouraging the transformational think-
ing required to move us away from our current destructive practices
towards the environmental sustainability we need to protect life
on our planet. For sure, just imagining a sustainable, effi cient and
fl ourishing society won’t make it happen – but creating a vision is
vital to guide and motivate our actions. From the beginning of human
time, the arts have been a powerful tool to refl ect on our world and
to inspire new possibilities.Personally, can you think of a particular work that has
touched you deeply and helped broaden your mindset?
In 2015 I attended the United Nations Paris Climate Change Confer-
ence where, as well as the treaty negotiations, there were artworks
and cultural interventions bringing the climate change crisis into the
very heart of the historic city. One work took my breath away: Ice
Watch by Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and geologist Minik Rosing.
Twelve immense blocks of ice, metres high and wide, harvested from
free-fl oating icebergs in a fj ord outside Nuuk, Greenland, had been
arranged in a huge clock formation on the Place du Panthéon. They
were like a Stonehenge for our age, but they were melting away, drip
by drip. Their potent and poignant presence highlighted the damage
being done and the time running out as the thousands of delegates
from every country struggled to come to a global agreement, and I
personally felt spurred on to do whatever I could to help.How does art help forge connections between people and the
planet we live on?
The past 200 years have seen humans increasingly separate them-
selves from nature, to a point now that the millions living in cities
have almost completely lost touch with the natural cycles and pro-
cesses that actually support and enable all life on Earth. Art can pro-
vide an experience that reawakens our own innate desire to connectwith nature and our own species – the feeling (sometimes referred
to as biophilia) that we belong to and are connected with all other
living things. When our connections to nature and each other have
been obscured, when our connections to our emotional or spiritual
life have been dulled or become dormant, art can open pathways to
re-establish those connections.What makes you feel most hopeful for the future?
My hope isn’t borne of wishful thinking or even positive thinking – it’s
more of an active hope. It’s a hope borne of necessity, because the
alternative is despair, and that won’t get us anywhere. For 30 years
the producers of coal, oil and gas, such as Exxon, have used their
immense wealth to sow denial and doubt about climate change.
Their infl uence has been devastatingly eff ective. Even now, when
they fi nally agree that we need to act, they say there’s no rush. Once
again they’re wrong, and highly confl icted. The longer that climate
action remains weak or delayed, the longer they have to continue
making money from mining and selling fossil fuels. But their lies and
duplicity are being unmasked and people power is starting to shift
the balance of infl uence. That gives me hope.What else gives me hope? Renewable energy; students marching in
the streets; scientists; ethical investment and divestment; legal chal-
lenges to investment in coal, oil and gas; policy researchers; environ-
mental and social justice activists; and the millions of people and their
communities worldwide who are demanding climate justice for all.I choose hope. Sometimes when I wake up, especially at three in the
morning, I just feel despair – after all, things can look pretty bleak.
But I have a choice: I can choose despair, fatalism, or even the wishful
thinking that someone else will do something. Or I can choose hope,
active hope, that means being active, doing something with other
people – because together, with love and with hope, I think we can do
something extraordinary. Together we can create a just and fl ourish-
ing world for all living things.
The climate emergency requires a global community-level response- individual actions alone aren’t capable of meeting this challenge.
This emergency aff ects everybody, everywhere. We can’t retreat
within our own families, communities or nations, and we certainly
can’t retreat to Mars (sorry, Elon). Those who think they can ‘sit this
one out’ are either deluded or in denial. We will succeed together
or fail together, but one way or another we will all choose our part.
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From the beginning of human time, the
arts have been a powerful tool to reflect on
our world and to inspire new possibilities