This paper introduces and contextualises Climate Futures, an experiment in which AI was repurposed as a ‘co-author’ of climate stories and a co-designer of climate-related images that facilitate reflections on present and future(s) of living with climate change. It converses with histories of writing and computation, including surrealistic ‘algorithmic writing’, recombinatory poems and ‘electronic literature’. At the core lies a reflection about how machine learning’s associative, predictive and regenerative capacities can be employed in playful, critical and contemplative goals. Our goal is not automating writing (as in product-oriented applications of AI). Instead, as poet Charles Hartman argues, ‘the question isn’t exactly whether a poet or a computer writes the poem, but what kinds of collaboration might be interesting’ (1996, p. 5). STS scholars critique labs as future-making sites and machine learning modelling practices and, for example, describe them also as fictions. Building on these critiques and in line with ‘critical technical practice’ (Agre, 1997), we embed our critique of ‘making the future’ in how we employ machine learning to design a tool for looking ahead and telling stories on life with climate change. This has involved engaging with climate narratives and machine learning from the critical and practical perspectives of artistic research. We trained machine learning algorithms (i.e. GPT-2 and AttnGAN) using climate fiction novels (as a dataset of cultural imaginaries of the future). We prompted them to produce new climate fiction stories and images, which we edited to create a tarot-like deck and a story-book, thus also playfully engaging with machine learning’s predictive associations. The tarot deck is designed to facilitate conversations about climate change. How to imagine the future beyond scenarios of resilience and the dystopian? How to aid our transition into different ways of caring for the planet and each other?
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Adopted on the fifteenth anniversary of resolution 1325, Security Council resolution 2242 has recognized for the first time the substantial link between climate change and the “Women, Peace and Security” (WPS) framework. Despite this landmark resolution, the intersections of environmental factors, conflict and violence against women remain largely absent from the Security Council's WPS agenda. Competition over natural resources is generally understood as a driver of conflict. The risk of insecurity and conflict are further increased by environmental degradation and climate change. It is therefore clear that the environment and natural resources must be integrated into the WPS agenda. This should necessarily include a discussion of indigenous rights to land and the gender-related dimensions of environmental factors. Indigenous women are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation, caused by resource extraction and increasingly compounded by climatic changes. This in turn exacerbates other vulnerabilities, including sexual and gender-based violence and other forms of marginalization. This article argues, by reference to the situation in West Papua, that unfettered resource extraction not only amplifies vulnerabilities and exacerbates preexisting inequalities stemming from colonial times, it also gives rise to gendered consequences flowing from the damage wreaked on the natural environment and thus poses a danger to international peace and security. As such, the Security Council's failure to recognize the continuous struggle of women in indigenous and rural communities against extractive economies and climate change impact as a security risk forms a serious lacuna within its WPS agenda. Originally published by Oxford University Press in Global Studies Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue 3, September 2021, ksab018, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksab018
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Sustainable Open Solutions Climate Waterfront is an interdisciplinary project that aims to explore waterfronts in Europe facing extreme situations under the threat of climate change, eg. heat, too much absent rain and sea level rise with all its consequences. The central goal is to exchange adaptive strategies for sustainable solutions for infrastructure and urban planning. The multidisciplinary perspective in cooperation with all possible partners, stakeholders and citizens, leads to a better understanding of the challenges and adaptation strategies.The participating parties are six coastal cities: Lisbon, Rome, Thessaloniki, Gdansk, Stockholm and the Amsterdam region. All these cities, except ‘Amsterdam’, are represented by a university. The Amsterdam area is represented by a multidisciplinary, educated but not necessarily academically employed delegation.
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The SUSTainable Artistic INnovation (SUSTAIN) project is a collaborative project between The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Avans University of Applied Sciences. The research was conducted by Jacco van Uden (professor Change Management) and Kim Caarls of The Hague University of Applied Sciences; and Godelieve Spaas (professor Common Economics), Olga Mink and Marga Rotteveel of Avans University of Applied Sciences. We also worked closely with six Spacemakers: Art Partner, Circus Andersom, Future of Work, In4Art, V2_ and Waag. SUSTAIN explores the role of Spacemakers: parties that want to contribute to systemic change by creating space for art in unusual places, such as within the economy, science or technology. The aim: to use art to work towards a sustainable and just society - ecologically, economically and socially. Expectations of what art can do in spheres other than the art world itself are sometimes high. For example, when we claim that art can be the engine of innovation and reflection. But experience shows: art is no panacea. Not everyone sees or recognises the added value of art in transition issues. And when art does come to the table, we do not always manage to make the disruption work. Artists explore the unknown, question what seems logical and connect seemingly disparate elements. It is precisely these qualities that are key to achieving systemic transitions. However, it is not always easy to access the spaces where artists want to make an impact. With this practical research, SUSTAIN offers more insight into the exact role, method and added value of Spacemakers in the transition to be made. The research and results contribute to the further professionalisation of this emerging sector. Just how Spacemaking practices are shaped by different organisations was examined: - Why do Spacemakers do what they do? - What do they see as the promise of art outside the arts? - How do they specifically go about making space for art? - How do Spacemakers deal with the tensions that arise when art gets involved in non-art matters and vice versa? - How do Spacemakers deal with the complicated question of the added value or impact of art and of themselves as space makers? SUSTAIN has produced two key outcomes: 1) The Spacemaker Toolbox, a practical tool for Spacemakers to explore and professionalise their work internally. It involves four models with instructions for use. 2) The Spacemaker Stories, a series of cahiers in which we look at Spacemaker practice from a distance and help Spacemakers articulate more clearly what they do, why they do it, how they do it and what value they create. The five cahiers are: The Calling (38 p.), The Promise of Art (39 p.), The Tension (49 p.), The Help (44 p.) and The Gift (30 p.).
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The SUSTainable Artistic INnovation (SUSTAIN) project is a collaborative project between The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Avans University of Applied Sciences. The research was conducted by Jacco van Uden (professor Change Management) and Kim Caarls of The Hague University of Applied Sciences; and Godelieve Spaas (professor Common Economics), Olga Mink and Marga Rotteveel of Avans University of Applied Sciences. We also worked closely with six Spacemakers: Art Partner, Circus Andersom, Future of Work, In4Art, V2_ and Waag. SUSTAIN explores the role of Spacemakers: parties that want to contribute to systemic change by creating space for art in unusual places, such as within the economy, science or technology. The aim: to use art to work towards a sustainable and just society - ecologically, economically and socially. Expectations of what art can do in spheres other than the art world itself are sometimes high. For example, when we claim that art can be the engine of innovation and reflection. But experience shows: art is no panacea. Not everyone sees or recognises the added value of art in transition issues. And when art does come to the table, we do not always manage to make the disruption work. Artists explore the unknown, question what seems logical and connect seemingly disparate elements. It is precisely these qualities that are key to achieving systemic transitions. However, it is not always easy to access the spaces where artists want to make an impact. With this practical research, SUSTAIN offers more insight into the exact role, method and added value of Spacemakers in the transition to be made. The research and results contribute to the further professionalisation of this emerging sector. Just how Spacemaking practices are shaped by different organisations was examined: - Why do Spacemakers do what they do? - What do they see as the promise of art outside the arts? - How do they specifically go about making space for art? - How do Spacemakers deal with the tensions that arise when art gets involved in non-art matters and vice versa? - How do Spacemakers deal with the complicated question of the added value or impact of art and of themselves as space makers? SUSTAIN has produced two key outcomes: 1) The Spacemaker Toolbox, a practical tool for Spacemakers to explore and professionalise their work internally. It involves four models with instructions for use. 2) The Spacemaker Stories, a series of cahiers in which we look at Spacemaker practice from a distance and help Spacemakers articulate more clearly what they do, why they do it, how they do it and what value they create. The five cahiers are: The Calling (38 p.), The Promise of Art (39 p.), The Tension (49 p.), The Help (44 p.) and The Gift (30 p.).
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Communities worldwide are critically re-examining their seasonal cultures and calendars. As cultural frameworks, seasons have long patterned community life and provided repertoires for living by annual rhythms. In a chaotic world, the seasons - winter, the monsoon and so on - can feel like stable cultural landmarks for reckoning time and orienting our communities. Seasons are rooted in our pasts and reproduced in our present. They act as schemes for synchronising community activities and professional practices, and as symbol systems for interpreting what happens in the world. But on closer inspection, seasons can be unstable and unreliable. Their meanings can change over time. Seasonal cultures evolve with environments and communities’ worldviews, values, technologies and practices, affecting how people perceive seasonal patterns and behave accordingly. Calendars are contested, especially now. Communities today find themselves in a moment of accelerated and intersecting changes - from climate to social, political, and technological - that are destabilizing seasonal cultures. How they reorient themselves to shifting patterns may affect whether seasonal rhythms serve as resources, or lead people down maladaptive pathways. A focus on seasonal cultures builds on multi-disciplinary work. The social sciences, from anthropology to sociology, have long studied how seasons order people’s sense of time, social life, relationship to the environment, and politics. In the humanities, seasons play an important role in literature, art, archaeology and history. This book advances scholarship in these fields, and enriches it with extrascientific insights from practice, to open up exiting new directions in climate adaptation. Critically questions traditional, often-static notions of seasons; re-interpreting them as more flexible, cultural frameworks adapting to changes to our societies and environments.
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The climate crisis is an urgent and complex global challenge, requiring transformative action from diverse stakeholders, including governments, civil society, and grassroots movements. Conventional top-down approaches to climate governance have proven insufficient (e.g. UNFCCC, COP events), necessitating a shift towards more inclusive and polycentric models that incorporate the perspectives and needs of diverse communities (Bliznetskaya, 2023; Dorsch & Flachsland, 2017). The independent, multidisciplinary approach of citizen-led activist groups can provide new insights and redefine challenges and opportunities for climate governance and regulation. Despite their important role in developing effective climate action, these citizen-led groups often face significant barriers to decision-making participation, including structural, practical, and legal challenges (Berry et al., 2019; Colli, 2021; Marquardt et al., 2022; Tayler & Schulte, 2019).
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How can the teaching of biology contribute to sustainability education? The authors of this article suggest that their approach has the potential to increase the students' level of engagement with the natural environment. The scope of biology teaching can be widened by allowing room for more experience and art-based activities. Such a change may deepen and expand the learners' insights in natural phenomena, which in turn might foster or enhance an attitude of care-taking for the natural environment.
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ClimateCafé is a multi-, trans-, interdisciplinary and international event of several days in which young professionals, stakeholders and scientist come together to collect data and design (potential) solutions for climate change adaptation in rural or urban areas. ClimateCafé mainly aims to enhance resilience and reduce vulnerability of communities by sharing knowledge, raising awareness and building capacity. ClimateCafé addresses global issues, such as climate change and sustainable development, on a local scale. In a ClimateCafé, context specific challenges, related to climate change and sustainable development, are proposed by local stakeholders and often relate to a specific problem area. Over the past decade, more than 28 ClimateCafés have been organised around the globe, including the Netherlands-Rotterdam, Sweden-Malmö, the Philippines-Manila, and Peru-Pirua. Since the first edition in Thailand (2012), ClimateCafé evolved in content and adopted a ‘learning by doing’ paradigm. Our results indicate ClimateCafé fosters integrated thinking across disciplines, cultures and knowledge sectors while reducing uncertainties affiliated with climate change adaptation. This is demonstrated by participants of previous ClimateCafés having various backgrounds including: law, civil engineering, water management, art, urban planning and environmental engineering. Furthermore, co-production is composed through workshops facilitated by stakeholders of the, so called, quadruple helix including academia, government, civic society and industry. Workshops make use of scientifically embedded methods, always related to the contextual challenge. For example, urban heat stress is measured by sensors on a bike and collecting urban green with online platform ClimateScan, community perceptions are collected through interviews, water quality is measured with the use of drones and perceptions and responsibilities of institutional actors are identified by interviews and field visits. Additionally, data is processed and design workshops facilitate integrated design of potential solutions which is disseminated through participants presenting their findings at conferences. Although ClimateCafé is resource intensive, requires active participation of stakeholders and currently mainly attracts students of affiliated universities, we argue this multi-, inter-, transdisciplinary and international knowledge exchange methodology fosters the innovation that is dearly needed to address global sustainability challenges and climate change adaptation.
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We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate–health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate decisions and ways to overcome structural barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C.
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