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When it Comes to Climate and Sustainable Progress, What's Art Got to Do it?

An evergreen conversation with two artists using drawing in very different ways to drive social and environmental change

My Sustain What webcast project started early in the pandemic and quickly evolved into having several tracks - one being regular Monday sessions I centered on pathways to Thriving Online. Here’s one of my favorites - a chat with two very different artists using drawing to communicate consequential environmental science and policy choices (also on YouTube):

Karen Romano Young (@doodlebugKRY), a seasoned science illustrator, has spent months at sea (follow her #AntarcticLog) with a focus on Antarctic science. She's also a childrens' book illustrator and author. Explore her work here.

Pat Bagley, a prize-winning political cartoonist for the Salt Lake City Tribune (@patbagley), is the longest continually employed newspaper cartoonist in the United States, with a career stretching back to 1979. In 2020, the year he was on my webcast, the National Cartoonists Society named him editorial cartoonist of the year.

Thriving online? Really?

I ended up running dozens of Thriving Online webcasts. Episodes are compiled in a YouTube playlist here: http://j.mp/thrivingonlineplaylist.

I was inspired to share this conversation after

’s latest post showed up in my inbox. Kelner is a climate-focused illustrator whose Substack dispatch, , is a valuable mix of inspiring examples and tips for using art to propel change.

Her latest post is the first in what she says will be a weekly series highlighting examples of art that educates, inspires and offers creative outlets to deal with climate anxiety (or any other flavor):

Arts and Climate Change with Nicole Kelner
Welcome to Sustainable Storytelling!
Climate has a communications problem. Art and storytelling are powerful climate solutions. My goal is to provide an antidote to doom scrolling by brightening your inbox with stories of art that educate, inspire hope, and offer creative activities to soothe climate anxiety…
Read more

Here’s a bit of Kelner’s own portfolio from her About page:

As you know if you’ve been tracking my output for awhile, there’s still very little data pointing to behavioral impacts of climate visualizations - even for compelling efforts like Ed Hawkins’ “warming stripes”. But there are hints, as the behavioral scientist Sabine Pahl discussed in this show:

So let the wild artistic rumpus play out.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber to build my argument with my family to keep going.

Sustain What
Sustain What?
Sustain What? is a series of conversations, seeking solutions where complexity and consequence collide on the sustainability frontier.
This program contains audio highlights from hundreds of video webcasts hosted by Andy Revkin, founder of the Columbia Climate School’s Initiative for Communication and Sustainability.
Dale Willman is the associate director of the initiative.
Revkin and Willman believe sustainability has no meaning on its own. The first step toward success is to ask: Sustain what? How? And for whom?