![]() We’ve had $188 billion in severe-weather damage in the last two years, so Mother Nature is accomplishing what climate scientists cannot, and that is, convince a majority of rational, god-fearing people that something has changed. One out of three were personally injured by severe weather. In 2011, four out of five Americans surveyed personally witnessed severe weather. The past two years have been the most extreme, weather-wise, in America’s history. You know what’s ironic? Mother Nature is now accomplishing what climate scientists have had a hard time doing-getting people’s attention. It’s much easier to turn on a cable news show with bloviating talking heads going back and forth, and it’s kind of sad. “Wow, you’re a freak!” But, you know what, there are a lot of Republicans out there, especially anybody under the age of 30 or 35, who still respect science and the scientific method.Ī lot of this comes down to science literacy, and the fact that many Americans really aren’t willing to dig into the science. I’m also an evangelical Christian and I’m concerned about climate change-which basically makes me an albino unicorn. I’m fiscally conservative and socially progressive. This is a real trend, and we ignore it at our peril. ![]() Then I dug into the peer-reviewed research and came to the conclusion-independently, before Al Gore made his movie-that, hey, this is real. ![]() In the ’90s, I saw evidence-just tracking the weather day in and day out-that something had changed, and these changes were consistent with what climate scientists have been saying for 20 or 30 years. Paul Douglas: I was skeptical in the ’80s. Schmelzer: Paul, your “climate epiphany”-as you wrote in a popular essay in the Huffington Post last spring-was quite gradual. I’m in service to the work itself, and the work is like an organism. I think that is the advantage of art as a form of communication, in distinction from political, journalistic, or even scientific communications, because there isn’t an agenda. In terms of effect, I make a strident effort to ignore any idea of how something might come across when I’m making it because I find that to be a poison that can destroy the process. I’m filtering that information through my own perspective and experiences and transforming it into a work that hopefully inspires people to learn more on their own. I’m just transmitting a disturbance I’ve been learning about. I don’t think of it as a political issue. I think it’s only politicized insofar as politics is so influenced by the financial markets, and I think that’s sad and horrifying. Cynthia, do you notice that audiences or critics respond to the premise of this piece differently than past works? What is your aim with the work as a whole, and how does advocacy-the changing of minds-factor in?Ĭynthia Hopkins: I’m always baffled when I hear this issue is politicized. Paul Schmelzer: As soon as someone takes on “political” themes in their art, the perception of the work’s goals often seems to change: it’s not art for art’s sake but includes an element of advocacy. ![]() In advance of the Midwest premiere of This Clement World, Douglas and Hopkins sat down with Walker managing editor Paul Schmelzer to discuss their personal climate journeys and ways that art and science can cooperate in changing minds about a changing planet. While deeply informed by research, Hopkins aims for a “wider, vaster lens” in her new work, the Walker co-commissioned music-theater piece This Clement World, which she says looks at both the spiritual and scientific sides of the issue. He’s also an evangelical Christian, and biblical principles of environmental stewardship shape his stance on global warming. ![]() A longtime fixture in Twin Cities media, Douglas is founder of the Media Logic Group, which runs several companies dedicated to collecting, analyzing, and presenting weather data. While their career paths are sharply divergent, Douglas and Hopkins share twin tools when addressing climate change-science and spirituality. Theater artist and musician Cynthia Hopkins didn’t need much convincing about the dire consequences we face if we don’t address the climate crisis, but two events were pivotal in pushing her to take up the subject in her art–a talk on sustainability at the 2009 Tipping Point conference and a residency with Cape Farewell, a program that aims to “instigate a cultural response to climate change.” In 2010, she joined Cape Farewell’s Arctic Expedition, in which artists and marine scientists experienced the very environment most threatened by global warming. That position was met with scorn by some of the right, who called him a “RINO climate poser,” a “global warming hoax promoter,” and worse. Paul Douglas considers himself an “albino unicorn.” A moderate Republican, he’s also a meteorologist who believes climate change is real. ![]()
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