Project outline
Climate change has been catapulted into global centre stage, becoming one of the dominant environmental concerns of the 21 st century. In the process, popular, local discourses of climate have been replaced by a global, scientific meta-narrative. Although climate change has been subject to considerable scrutiny by the physical sciences, recent scholarship has argued for a re-examination of the ‘idea' of climate and its culturally and spatially variable dimensions, with contributions from the humanities and social sciences.
The purpose of this network was to draw together representatives from the arts and humanities, the broader research community, learned and professional societies, including the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers and the Royal Meteorological Society and amateur/enthusiast groups, to identify ways to redress the global and scientific bias in climate discourses, to explore the meaning of climate for different groups of people in different spatial and temporal contexts and to interrogate climate's ontological status.
A particular goal has been to bridge communication gaps between global, scientific climate change narratives and local, cultural narratives of climate, including those more sceptical of anthropogenic climate change. Progress has been made through a series of interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral workshops with the following objectives:
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To question the bias toward climate change, and global as the preferred scale, in contemporary climate research
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To refocus attention on public understanding of climate, and weather, at the local, sensory level
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To consider the changing cultural spaces of climate knowledge production, past and present
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To explore the actual and potential role of interest groups, including enthusiast/amateur, professional and learned societies in the collection, production and circulation of climate knowledge past and present.
Events
Workshop 1
Location: Machicado Conference Suite, Willoughby Hall, University of Nottingham
Date: 3rd December 2010
The first workshop on “Re-culturing Climate” involved presentations by network participants, including David Matless, Brigitte Nerlich, Adam Trexler, Russell Hitchings and John Thornes, and a keynote speaker, James Roger Fleming. Group discussions focussed on ways to incorporate arts and humanities perspectives into contemporary climate research, media representation of climate change issues and climate discourses.
Workshop 2
Location: Royal Geographical Society-with the Institute of British Geographers, Kensington Gore, London
Date: March 16th 2011
This workshop titled "Historicising Climate" addressed how historical perspectives can offer insight into the changing nature of the relationship between climate and people and different cultural attitudes to climate over time. The purpose was also to bring historical materials into wider public and professional circulation and illustrate their use in developing narratives of climates past and present. This workshop involved presentations by network participants, including David Livingstone, Simon Naylor, Michael Hebbert and Vladimir Jankovic and Cerys Jones, group discussions, a keynote speaker, Jan Golinski, and an opportunity to explore the manuscript collections, prints and photographs, film, artefacts, maps and other holdings at the RGS-IBG.
Workshop 3
Location: The Royal Meterological Society, Reading
Date: 25th June 2011
The final workshop on “Popularising Climate” concentrated on the involvement of amateur/enthusiast communities to establish how they might become more involved as intermediaries between the public, academic and professional domains. This dovetails with 'Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) objectives aimed at improving the way in which communities in the UK with different cultural backgrounds and belief systems understand - and can live - with climate change. This workshop included presentations by Catherine Brace Leyshon and Hilary Geoghegan, Carol Morris, Georgina Endfield, representatives from the Climatological Observers Link (COL), The Cloud Appreciation Society (CAS), the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO) and the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS).
Achievements
Conversations and contacts generated by the network continue in the form of a new network of postgraduates and early-career researchers who were brought together by the 'Cultural Spaces of Climate' workshop series. A launch event for the network is planned for Autumn 2011.
Plans are underway for an edited volume of selected papers from the workshops and a public on-line exhibition (hosted by the RGS-IBG) is under development, showcasing the network's activities. It is intended that materials resulting from the network will also feed into the RGS-IBG/ MetS ‘Climate4Classrooms' initiative. Copies of presentations, notes and reports resulting from the workshops will be deposited (with author’s permission) with the Chilterns Observatory Trust, a charity founded by freelance weather writer, Philip Eden (on the network’s steering committee), intended to provide a focal point for public access to a wide range of publications and archived weather data.
A follow up project is currently being developed which will focus on the
intergenerational exchange of climate knowledge in collaboration with Tipping Point (a UK based Charity which offers a range of activities centred on exposing artists from all art forms to the challenges of climate change, working in tandem with the scientists at the
forefront of the subject) and UK based schools.