Climate Emergency
Around the world, more and more young people are demanding action on climate change, and the teens assembled at the Community Church of New York on Park Avenue this past Saturday are adding their voices to that chorus. But this is a different kind of protest: Climate Speaks is a spoken-word youth poetry performance that gives students the chance to express their grief and hope through art. The show is put on by the Climate Museum, a new nonprofit in New York City that aims to raise awareness and educate the public about the climate crisis.
“Art is essential in shifting our culture on climate,” said Miranda Massie, the director of the Climate Museum and organizer of the event. “It reaches us at the visceral, the emotional, the communal. Art is absolutely essential to reaching people through their feelings of being connected to others.”
She goes on to cite a statistic from a recent Yale Climate Communication report: 69 percent of Americans say they’re anxious about the climate, but only 8 percent are regularly talking about it. “Most of us are responding with a sense of overwhelmed isolation and anxiety feeling the problem is far too big for us,” Massie said, explaining part of the reasoning behind the show. “We need to feel connected to other people.”
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