Can video games change people’s minds about the climate crisis? – the Guardian

Terra Nil video game screen capture from Netflix game trailer via Youtube.

A new wave of game makers are attempting to influence a generation of environmentally conscious players. Will it work, and is it enough?….Terra Nil, the video game that Alfred has been developing since 2019, is a response to these terrifying events. Dubbed a “city-builder in reverse”, it foregoes the consumption and expansion of genre classics such as Civilisation and SimCity to paint a picture of environmental restoration. Starting with arid desert, it’s up to the player to rewild a landscape using various technologies – a toxin scrubber, for example, or a beehive…

Hip hop has been a climate voice for 50 years. Why haven’t more people noticed? – Grist Magazine

Hip Hop Graffiti (CC BY-SA 4.0 via Pxfuel).

“People have spent time bobbing their heads to our stories of this despair and not seeing it as a call to action…”
Hip hop’s relationship to the environment, both in terms of lyrics and political activism, goes back to its very beginning, when smoke from apartment fires blackened the skies of the 1970s South Bronx. And yet its role in advocating for climate solutions has largely gone unnoticed…

Replay Boomer – Grist Magazine, Imagine 2200 Climate Fiction Initiative

Teenage Retro (CC0 1.0 Public Domain via PxHere)

Imagine 2200, Grist’s climate fiction initiative, publishes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope.

1963
Breakfast is interrupted by a crash that shakes the house to its foundations. Out the window, the wet coastal view is obscured by a spray of dust and foam. Another house has slid into the sea…

Can Art Change Attitudes Toward Climate Change? – Hyperallergic

Diane Burko making final touches to 2021 painting "Unprecedented" January 1, 2021 (by Meanwhile88, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia).

A study found that people who viewed climate data in the form of an artwork were less likely to lean on their preconceived notions.

A new study found that using art to convey environmental data eased political perceptions about climate change. As wildfires rage in Canada and New York City recovers from a week of smoke, the study’s findings could help scientists more effectively communicate their research at a pivotal point in the future of the planet…

My art uses plastic recovered from beaches around the world to understand how our consumer society is transforming the ocean – the Conversation

‘Bounty Pilfered’ (center), ‘Newer Laocoön’ (left) and ‘Threnody’ (right). All made of ocean plastic from the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, installed at the Baker Museum in Naples, Fla., 2022 (by Pam Longobardi, CC BY-ND via the Converstion).

“I am obsessed with plastic objects. I harvest them from the ocean for the stories they hold…Each object has the potential to be a message from the sea – a poem, a cipher, a metaphor, a warning. My work collecting and photographing ocean plastic and turning it into art began with an epiphany in 2005, on a far-flung beach at the southern tip of the Big Island of Hawaii…

Listen: Climate fiction to imagine a better world – the Grist

Outdoor Agriculture in India 2500 (artwork is a supplement to the study "Climate change research and action must look beyond 2100" published in Global Change Biology, Volume 28, Issue 2, John Wiley Online Library, Open Access uploaded by James McKay CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia).

Imagine 2200, Grist’s climate fiction initiative, invites readers and writers to envision equitable climate progress in futures near and far.

In this audiobook collection, immerse yourself in readings of some of our favorite tales we’ve published so far. They tell of finding climate solutions in one’s heritage, the connections between species facing extinction, and finding ways to survive through the power of community.

Dolly Parton’s new song is a climate anthem (if you want it to be) – the Grist

Screenshot from Dolly Parton - World On Fire (From The 58th ACM Awards via youtube).

In the video for her new song, “World On Fire,” Dolly Parton sits atop a burning world. Blond hair piled and coiffed, her black dress glittering, she looks down into a pit of flames burning the earth. The song rocks a little harder than her usual feathery country oeuvre, and over a driving beat, she lets you know she’s about to get political…