Climate Stories: Enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication

Abstract. The climate science community faces a major challenge for communicating the risks associated with climate change within a heavily politicised landscape, characterised by varying degrees of denial, scepticism, distrust in scientific enterprise and an increased prevalence of misinformation (“fake news”). This issue is particularly significant given the reliance on conventional ‘deficit’ communication approaches, which are based on the assumption that scientific information provision will necessarily lead to desired behavioural changes. Indeed, we argue that the constrained orthodoxy of scientific practices in seeking to maintain strict objectivity and political separation imposes very tangible limits on the potential effectiveness of climate scientists for communicating risk in many contemporary settings. To address these challenges, this paper uses insights from a collaboration between UK climate scientists and artist researchers to advocate for a more creative and emotionally attentive approach to climate science engagement and advocacy. In so doing, the paper highlights innovative ways in which climate change communication can be re-imagined through different art forms to enable complex concepts to become knowable, accessible and engaging to wider publics. We demonstrate that in learning to express their work through forms of art, including print-making, theatre and performance, song-writing and creative writing, researchers experienced not only a sense of liberation from the rigid communicative framework operating in their familiar scientific environment, but also a growing self-confidence in their ability and willingness to engage in new ways of expressing their work. As such, we argue that scientific institutions and funding bodies should recognise the potential value of climate scientists engaging in advocacy through art-science collaborations and that these personal investments and contributions to science engagement by individuals should be rewarded and valued alongside conventional scientific outputs.