Climate change is a complex scientific subject with a plethora of data-rich reports that detail its causation and diverse impacts. However, as important as all that information is, not everyone responds to facts and figures or charts and graphs. That is why art, which taps into human emotion and tells visual stories, can help create new pathways to understanding this global issue.

Marking World Environment Day on June 5, I will be discussing this idea in a presentation titled “Climate Communication: Using Art to Get Beyond the Numbers” at the UN Committee of New Canaan in New Canaan, CT. Blending the qualitative and quantitative, this talk reviews the results of a recent poll that measured the influence climate-art has on people’s opinions and highlights specific artworks that speak to the assorted impacts of this critical issue and its possible solutions.

As the famous scientist, Lord Kelvin, said, “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.” If that is true, then art has an important role to play in helping to broaden the public conversation on climate change.

Credit: Melissa Fleming/The Weather Gamut