The Art at COP27 Offered Opportunities to Move Beyond ‘Empty Words’ – Inside Climate News

Bodies Joined by a Molecule of Air by Invisible Flock arts studio and Jon Bausor, November 10, 2022 (by Kiara Worth, UNClimateChange CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr).

While the goal of effecting decisive global change proved largely elusive at the United Nations’ annual climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the art at COP27 offered other road maps for moving forward…
“You can’t keep having these conversations amongst yourselves as politicians and academics and scientists,” (Egyptian-Lebanese artist, Bahia Shehab) said. “We’re not getting anywhere. We need to open up the conversation.”

‘No safe place’: Kiribati seeks donors to raise islands from encroaching seas – the Guardian

A view of mangrove shoots planted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others on Tarawa, an atoll in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, 2011(by Eskinder Debebe, UN Photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr).

Pacific state needs billions for its ambitious plan – its president demands wealthy nations act to help now

Developing countries vulnerable to the worst ravages of global heating have spent the past week at United Nations climate talks urging more support from wealthy nations. The Pacific state of Kiribati has a very specific and unusual demand – that its islands be physically raised up to escape the encroaching seas…

CLIMATE CHANGE FROM A TO Z – the New Yorker

Snippet from the New Yorker Article: Climate Change from A to Z

In an urgent and beautifully composed call to action in the format of an “A to Z” narrative accompanied by bold illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook, Elizabeth Kolbert mixes serious informative facts with a dash of wry humor to acknowledge our collective failure to adequately address our climate crisis while offering some possible tools to help us try harder and do better.

Corporate Greenwashing

Greenwashing - Street Art in Nantes, France (by elkhiki CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

Advertising is an incredibly powerful tool for convincing us to buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like. Last year the United States spent nearly $300 billion on advertising, and now that we are only about six weeks from Christmas, we can expect to be inundated with ads to convince us to get out our credit cards and close out the year on a spending spree. According to the latest data from the National Retail Federation, individual American consumers spend an average of $998 on gifts and holiday stuff each Christmas, which is the same as the median pre-tax weekly salary of $1,001…

How Belize Cut Its Debt by Fighting Global Warming – the New York Times

Aerial view of the Caribbean Sea and the Split in Caye Caulker, Belize (by Falco Ermert CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

Belize faced an economic meltdown. The pandemic had sent it into its worst ever recession, putting the government on the brink of bankruptcy.
A solution came from unexpected quarters. A local marine biologist offered Prime Minister Johnny Briceño a novel proposal: Her nonprofit would lend the country money to pay its creditors if his government agreed to spend part of the savings this deal would generate to preserve its marine resources.

A Fossil Museum Uses the Past to Reimagine Climate’s Future – The New York Times

A detail from the frieze above the front entrance to the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits (by John Fladd CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

As the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum undergoes a major redesign, its leaders hope it can do more to engage the public and educate visitors about the realities of climate change.

“How we present this information in a way it can help communities is a challenge,” she said. “If you go too far in the hope direction, it goes against the science. But we need to bring people in.” – Dr. Lori Bettison-Varga