What role might arts play in response to climate change and related economic and ecological crises?
It's often said that a novel, a painting, a song or a motion picture changed how a lot of people thought or felt about the world. Anthropologists (人类学家) and historians rightly argue that major changes in society have sprung up not from the arts, but from-our relationship to our environment. Nevertheless, artists' efforts help shape the terms by which society adapts to such changes and their consequences. Think of how Beethoven marked the beginnings of modern democracy and the nascent (初期的) Industrial Revolution. Or how Hollywood writers and directors inspired massive support for the U.S. war effort during the early 1940s.
We have stepped into a century in which the societal systems have been built since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Our food system，transport system，energy system，financial system，and possibly our political and governance systems were designed during an era in which fossil fuels met the great quantity of our fast-growing energy demand. But fossil fuels are exhaustible resources, and their reduction will drive evermore desperate methods of extraction (提炼), create evermore environmental risk and require evermore capital-even as alternative energy sources they are also costly. Further, burning fossil fuels changes our planet's climate. So, at the same time our economy will need to be redesigned to run on entirely different energy sources, and the natural world will be shifting around us in unprecedented (空前的) ways, with more frequent disastrous storms, floods, droughts etc.
Everything will be up for negotiation, redesign and change. And artists have the opportunity and duty to translate the resulting tumultuous (动荡的) human experience into words, images, and music that help people not just to understand these events mentally, but also to come to grips with them willingly. The economic and environmental shifts described above are currently being detailed in ever-greater specificity in hundreds of reports released yearly by climate and energy experts. What's missing in their carefully worded journal articles is the human dimensions of imagination, joy or sorrow, inspiration, and passion. Art can help us cope with the possible effects of our collective challenges. It can help prepare society for a possibly painful future. It can give voice to suffering and loss, helping people deal with life's unavoidable stress. And it can also offer beauty, which can be especially important in hard times.
Meaningful art can and must express the chaos we encounter and help us process it mentally and emotionally. To achieve this, artists need to dig deeper, observe more closely and help their audiences connect abstract explanations and forecasts with actual experiences.
