Climate Change, Arts, and the Media

What role do arts and the media play in climate change? A big one, according to experts who took part in a symposium that addressed how arts and the media influence the public's perception of climate change. Andrew Revkin, senior fellow at the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies and blogwriter for the New York Times's "Dot Earth," recognizes the importance of climate information but questions whether the public would act even with perfect information.

Igor Vamos, an associate professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, maintains that climate change is an umbrella topic for the environmental and social justice movements, and Stefan Rahmstorf, a physics professor at Potsdam University, points out that different socioeconomic realities impact public discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. "Europe has a more positive attitude than the United States about what can be done to change energy consumption patterns," he says.

Hosted by the Pardee Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, the Goethe-Institut Boston, and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen on October 18, 2010.