Reframing Climate Change: An Ecocritical Frame

Abstract

This chapter addresses the question, “if art historians, artists, or scholars and educators in the arts and humanities were to respond to the serious and urgent issue of climate change, what options do we have for confronting this crisis?” This chapter’s response focuses on surfacing the deeply ingrained and largely unconscious positions and tropes that shape our relationship with the physical and natural elements that make up our ecosystem—our home. In this chapter, I argue that there is no innocent eye, only lenses through which we interpret the so-called “objective” phenomena like climate change. To be aware of these lenses is to develop a critical eye, one that will help us understand—reflexively and critically—climate change in its multiple dimensions. I will demonstrate these insights by sharing my experiences as part of an interdisciplinary team that teaches the General Education course “Disaster Risk Mitigation, Adaptation and Preparedness Strategies” (DRMAPS) in the University of the Philippines. In the process, I hope that the pedagogical frame and course delivery I will discuss in this paper will benefit policymakers and other teachers in the field of Education.

FormalPara Key Points

• The climate emergency must be understood in all its multiple and interdisciplinary dimensions.

• Understanding and responding to climate change involves going beyond the “binary” of climate change as a scientific and technological phenomenon (Problem of Ecology), on the one hand, and as a cultural Ecological Problem, on the other hand. An eco-critical method suggests a more well-rounded frame.

• The General Education course, Disaster Risk Mitigation, Adaptation and Preparedness Strategies (DRMAPS) exemplifies the integration and collaboration of multiple disciplines in learning and teaching the problem of climate change and the climate emergency.

FormalPara Summary for Policymakers

The most recent report from the IPCC predicts that some of the most severe social and economic damages from the rise in global temperatures could come as soon as 2040. If nothing is done then, 300 million people will be affected by sea level rise in 2050.

• Geographically, the Philippines is one of the countries in the Global South that is most exposed to risks from climate change. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, surrounded by naturally warm waters that will likely get even warmer as average sea surface temperatures continue to rise.

• To some extent, according to the Climate Reality Project, “this is a normal pattern: the ocean surface warms as it absorbs sunlight. The ocean then releases some of its heat into the atmosphere, creating wind and rain clouds. However, as the ocean’s surface temperature increases over time from the effects of climate change, more and more heat is released into the atmosphere. This additional heat in the ocean and air can lead to stronger and more frequent storms—which is exactly what we’ve seen in the Philippines over the last decade.”

The climate emergency must be understood in all its multiple and interdisciplinary dimensions. it is not only a scientific problem, but also a cultural one.

On Framing the Problem of the Climate Emergency

The climate emergency must be understood in all its multiple and interdisciplinary dimensions. It is not only a scientific problem but also a cultural one.

• Lessons can be drawn from understanding the aesthetic, social, and cultural nature of climate change, and the role of deeply ingrained and widely held beliefs that shape our relationship to our ecology.

• Tropes, or widely shared cultural scripts, contain narrative stereotypes, that are so commonplace and deeply ingrained they have become “natural,” “innocent”, and largely unconscious.

• It is important for policymakers to understand and appreciate the tropes by which we frame and approach the climate emergency problem.

• The discipline of Art studies  focuses on art, broadly conceived and defined. “Art,” not only refers to the usual suspects: the “fine arts” of painting and sculpture, for example, but also to a broad array of creative products and environments—from photographs in social media, to street theater, rap music, weaving, movie billboards, malls, tabloids, realist drama, installations, montage, epics, urban planning, ballet, pictures, television, public monuments, and so on.

In the humanities, an important paradigm shift is the shift in the concept of art—from one of object (art work) to process (work of art) and from one of fixed and prescriptive outcomes to one of openness to many possibilities within the “noise” and routines of the everyday.

• Understanding and responding to climate change involves crossing the divide between climate change as a scientific and technological phenomenon (Problem of Ecology), on the one hand, and on the other hand, as a cultural Ecological Problem.

In the humanities, an important paradigm shift is the shift in concept of art—from one of object (art work) to process (work of art) and from one of fixed and prescriptive outcomes to one of openness to many possibilities within the “noise” and routines of the everyday.

• An eco-critical method and frame goes beyond these binaries, suggesting a more well-rounded encounter between, not only professionals and experts in the natural and physical sciences but also experts in the social sciences and the humanities.

On Teaching Disaster Risk Management

Policymakers can provide ways, platforms, and venues, not only for experts to talk to each other but also to fishers, poets, farmers, weavers, carpenters, and so on, so that we can work together through collaborations that are attuned, not only with the “science” of climate change but also keenly attentive to the manifold textures and shapes of the non-human and human worlds.

The General Education course, Disaster Risk Mitigation, Adaptation, and Preparedness Strategies (DRMAPS) targets students at the tertiary level at the University of the Philippines, but may also benefit all educators, including those at the basic education level.

• The humanities perspective and the disciplines of art studies contribute to the teaching of the interdisciplinary General Education course called DRMAPS that operates on an interdisciplinary framework from course content to course delivery.

• Based at the UP College of Engineering, DRMAPS is taught by an interdisciplinary team originally composed of two engineers (who conceptualized and originated the course), a psychologist, an educator, the then Dean of the UP College of Fine Arts, who specializes in visual communications, and myself. 

• This team reviews the syllabus every semester, constantly finding the right mix or balance between the technical and scientific domains, with the cultural, political, and social areas of inquiry. We aim to teach students—themselves coming from diverse backgrounds and disciplines—to be firmly grounded on scientific data, facts, backstories, and findings creatively and imaginatively, in ways that go beyond stock knowledge and clichés.

DRMAPS operates on an interdisciplinary framework from course content to delivery, including the humanities and the art studies disciplines. We aim to teach students to be firmly grounded on scientific data, facts, backstories, and findings creatively and imaginatively, in ways that go beyond stock knowledge and clichés.

• For policymakers and educators, there should be a training of trainers who will initiate multidisciplinary conversations across disciplines, at national and local levels, similar to DRMAPS.

• The most concrete outputs will be curricular and education modules and strategies that can guide teachers, not only in explaining the science of climate change but also the significance of the arts and humanities as a springboard for action and transformation.

1 Introduction

1.1 Climate Change as an Ecological Problem

One of the most striking images I saw over the internet is that of an installation of tiny sculptures by Spanish street artist Isaac Cordal. It caught my attention, not only because the scene reminds us of “our own decline,” as the artist puts it, but also because of how social media has appropriated the artwork with a new headline that warns us of an apocalyptic future, and it is one that will be upon us soon, if not already: “This is what politicians debating global warming will look like soon.” As it turns out, this installation does not directly address global warming or climate change. Meant to draw attention to the faceless businessmen who run our capitalist global order, this 2013 piece of miniaturized figures—around 5–9 inches tall—submerged in a Berlin puddle are part of a larger street art project called “Cement Eclipses,” and this particular piece is actually titled: “Follow the Leaders.”¹¹ This mismatch between the artist’s intention, that is as a commentary on electoral politics, on the one hand, and that of social media remediation, on the other, could be an indication of how art can generate new ways of seeing and understanding, directly or indirectly through images that provoke us to confront one—if not the most pressing issues of our time.

The most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that some of the most severe social and economic damage from the rise in global temperatures could come as soon as 2040. Citing the result of a study, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierres, in a briefing after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—UN Summit in Thailand said that an analysis of the speed of the rise of sea level showed that it is faster than what was known earlier. The report foresees that “if we are not able to defeat climate change we will have, in 2050, an impact on the sea level rise over 300 million people,” he said.²²

Another study (released 10 Oct 2019) by Climate Central and published through the Nature Communications journal forecasts that at the rate sea levels are rising, several Asian countries will be under water by 2050, including the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, China, Japan, and Vietnam. In the Philippines, low-lying areas of Manila, Navotas, Malabon, Pasay, and Bulacan in Luzon (Northern Philippines), as well as coastal areas in Visayas in Central Philippines (Kalibo, Aklan, and Roxas City in Capiz) and Mindanao in Southern Philippines (Cotabato City, along Datu Piang and Northern Kabuntan in Maguindanao), are likely to be affected by coastal flooding.³

People are getting worried about climate change, and yes, we do have a problem. Greg Garrard in his book Ecocriticism⁴ suggests, via John Passmore, that this problem is perceived and addressed at two levels: as a scientific one, which he refers to as falling under the rubric of “Problems in Ecology” and a cultural one—as an Ecological Problem—and with it, the general feeling that something is not right somewhere in our planet, and that such awareness becomes widely perceived and disseminated, and in the case of Cordal’s viral image, in social media.

The question I would like to explore in this paper is: how is this Ecological Problem framed? When the tiny, almost invisible figures representing electoral politics turn into politicians debating climate change amidst an apocalyptic scenario, I detect a deep-seated fear triggered by a widely shared cultural script or trope, perhaps hitherto unarticulated, until a compelling picture brought it to the surface of social media imagination. These tropes contain narrative stereotypes, that are so commonplace and deeply ingrained that they have become “natural,” “innocent” and largely unconscious. My aim in this paper is to surface these tropes, particularly those concerned with how we view our relationship with the natural and physical elements that make up our ecosystem—our home, the English equivalent of “Eco,” which comes from the root word “oikos” (ancient Greek) or home. I argue that there is no innocent eye, only lenses or positions through which we interpret the so-called “objective” phenomena—Problems of Ecology—like climate change.

I will outline the positions and tropes from a humanities framework, and the discipline of art studies, which studies art, broadly conceived and defined. “Art,” not only refers to the usual suspects: the “fine arts” of painting, sculpture, for example, but also to a broad array of creative products and environments from photographs in social media, to street theater, rap music, weaving, movie billboards, malls, tabloids, realist drama, installations, montage, epics, urban planning, ballet, pictures, television, public monuments, and so on. When I study these art forms, I draw on the methods of various disciplines that frame our programs at the Department of Art Studies (AB and MA Art Studies), including art history, art criticism, curation, art theory and aesthetics, and art production.

2 Drmaps and the Arts

In the following account, I will demonstrate how the humanities perspective and the disciplines of art studies contribute to the teaching of an interdisciplinary General Education course called DRMAPS (Disaster Risk Mitigation, Adaptation, and Preparedness Strategies). I hope that the experiences I will share will demonstrate how the interdisciplinary framework can become operational, from course content to course delivery. In the process, I hope that what I share will benefit educators and policy makers, particularly in the field of Education.

Based at the UP College of Engineering, DRMAPS is taught by an interdisciplinary team assembled 7–8 years ago (and counting). The team is composed of two engineers (who conceptualized and originated the course), a psychologist, an educator, a then fine arts Dean, who specializes in visual communications and myself. This team-which has expanded to include faculty members from geology, mass communication, among others - reviews the syllabus every semester, constantly finding the right mix or balance between the technical and scientific domains, with the cultural, political, and social areas of inquiry. We aim to teach students—themselves coming from diverse backgrounds and disciplines—to be firmly grounded on scientific data, facts, backstories, and findings creatively and imaginatively, in ways that go beyond stock knowledge and clichés. In retelling the story of the forest, for example, we remind them to communicate, not only the correct science of forests. The ultimate aim is to change the way we THINK about forests.

We ask our students to PROBE their surrounding, learn where to search for information, which ideas to pay attention to, in this case, the key terms: risk, vulnerability, hazards, exposure, and capacity. We learn to approach these terms from different points of view and different disciplines. In art, we call this PERSPECTIVE. For example, from a structural perspective, the UP Catholic Chapel or Church of the Holy Sacrifice⁵ may be described as a modern church made of reinforced concrete that is formed in a thin circular shell, inside very spacious and free from posts or columns. It is airy and maximizes available light, although worshippers can also get wet during rainy and stormy weather, because of its open structure.

From an arts perspective, we can also point out that the church has multiple entry points and we can approach and view the center altar from different vantage points. Culturally, this multiple perspective might also indicate that worship has become more intimate, more flexible.

We can also say that it is possible to have a sturdy building—one that is strong enough against earthquake and fire—that is approachable and not necessarily massive, like the old church buildings, which crumbled during earthquakes in Bohol and Cebu (2013, 2017) and Pampanga (2019). Combining structural and cultural factors may yield certain questions and conclusions: A building’s massive size does not necessarily mean it is strong enough for earthquakes. Why then, do buildings fail? This may be a structural issue, but the question could also well be: Why were these buildings built? Are structures built for comfort? To live in? Was beauty considered in building structures? What is beautiful? What is comfortable?

The cultural, psychological, and aesthetic reasons complicate the structural and safety concerns. When we study art history, we could see that such issues preoccupy the art historian, as much as it does the engineers. The history of art could well be a history of finding creative solutions to multi-dimensional problems. And this is why, when we talk of structures, the structural engineer and the art historian can work together as a team.

There are also moments in this class when we looked at the earth from an aerial view, as in for example, the maps in a new app launched in July 2019 called the Hazard Hunter developed by a multi-agency team of scientists and communications specialists. Upon opening the app by clicking https://hazardhunter.georisk.gov.ph, we can find the location we are interested in down to the household level. Upon clicking a particular location on the map, the app provides information on the hazards you are exposed to in more general, technical, and scientific terms: a bird’s eye view, so to speak. During the course of their final projects and case studies, the students realize that we also have to come down to earth, and focus on human beings at ground level, at the level of the body, and its capacity, not only to make sense of the world but also to SENSE it: to hear more, feel more, see more.

In the arts, we refer to the study of sensory experience at ground level as AESTHETICS. To be aesthetic is to become fully aware, fully alive, our senses activated at their peak, as Dr. Ken Robinson defined it in a TED Talk on Changing Paradigms in Education.⁶ We open up to the world and become fully conscious that we are part of a larger world.

Through research, we expand our understanding beyond what we know and even challenge the correctness of that knowledge. We are called upon to go beyond the “default” of tropes towards generating concepts and courses of action that are novel and useful. Learning from arts education, we call this ability to go beyond the default CREATIVITY, which according to Bloom’s taxonomy⁷,⁷ is the highest form of learning. It is in and through creativity that we gather “data” and “facts,” and put them all together in accessible and engaging narratives through informed and nuanced analysis. We cannot be creative if we do not know how to ask questions, if we do not gather relevant information, and if we do not connect this knowledge together through a process that balances logic, intuition, and affect—critically and systematically.

We translate these principles into activities that make the students go through collaborative creative processes. We turn the classroom—and the world outside the classroom as a space for pakikipagkapwa (roughly translates to “fellowship.” I will discuss this term in more detail in another section) through the creative experience— pagdanas or danas—and make space for our hearts and minds to activate and process feelings—dama/pagdama—that are taken for granted or unacknowledged as we go through routines of everyday life, including our academic lives. To demonstrate, I will describe one such activity in the following section.

Going Beyond Our Defaults: The Nuclear Cow

One of the activities that we have been conducting at the start of each semester is dubbed “Nuclear Cow” (also known as the Radioactive Cow).

The Instructions and Mechanics by Way of an Activity Guide Follows:

A spaceship is leaving earth soon (we do not tell them why), and only ten passengers can be accommodated. In 30 minutes, your group should decide which of the following will be on the spaceship:

• 1. 36-year-old male filmmaker (director)

• 2. 59-year-old female concert pianist

• 3. 48-year-old male congressman

• 4. 25-year-old male meteorologist

• 5. 40-year-old male artist (painter)

• 6. 35-year-old male political scientist

• 7. 30-year-old female exotic dancer

• 8. 52-year-old male architect

• 9. 19-year-old male actor

• 10. 72-year-old female teacher (secondary or “high school”)

• 11. 50-year-old male biologist

• 12. 42-year-old female transgender cosmetologist

• 13. 60-year-old female psychologist

• 14. 42-year-old male doctor (GP)

• 15. 57-year-old male physicist

• 16. The nuclear cow

Mechanics:

• 1. Each member of the group will pick at random a piece of sealed paper on which is written one of the “characters” or dramatist personae listed above, except for the nuclear cow. (Take note that, this is a big class—around 80–100 students. Each group has an average of four to five members.)

• 2. Each member will play the role of the character that they picked out of the raffle, and persuade the group why she or he has to be in that spaceship. A male student might pick a female character, and so on, but he/she has to assume that role.

• 3. After the “defense,” the group forms a consensus. They can reject or accept a member according to their agreed criteria.

• 4. The groups will present their list in the “plenary” session, and post the group report to our University Virtual Learning Environment (UVLe) platform.

- End of Study Guide -

We have been conducting this activity for at least four terms now, for the purposes of group dynamics, introduction of key terms related to disaster risk reduction, and the nature, character, and objectives of the subject as a General Education requirement

Semester after semester, most of the groups swallow the bait, hook, line, and sinker and with a few exceptions, chose those who will board the spaceship according to how they can contribute to the project of building the new world or planet. The exotic dancer is in the list of most of the groups and is chosen for her reproductive and “entertainment” value, which, as I always point out during the plenary processing smacks of sexism; the scientists, the psychologist, the architect, the political scientist, and the doctor are chosen for their expertise and their contribution to building a new society and new world. The 72-year-old secondary teacher is often left behind because, unlike the exotic dancer, she is perceived to be much too old to be of any use. In a similar vein, the groups decide to leave most of the artists because they probably agree with Plato: “Artists have no place in the ideal republic,” and their skills may not have any practical application. If artists do get included, such as the filmmaker or the painter, they are chosen for their skills in documentation; the pianist, like the exotic dancer, can also provide recreation and entertainment.

Most of the groups did not raise questions before they rushed to fill up the spaceship, probably because they were given very little time (as in any disaster, “quick response” is crucial), or probably because they bear deeply ingrained habits of thought—or what I referred to earlier as tropes—that they bring with them to the table. They worked on the usual assumptions: The earth is now unlivable and so we have to leave it; we are going to another planet to rebuild; and we have limited space.

They chose the passengers according to how they were listed (a pedagogical trick): age, gender, and specialization and proceeded to make their decisions according to stereotypes. In their haste, the students were unable to reflect and ask such questions: “Who are these people, beyond their profiles?” Perhaps the secondary teacher is more fit than any of them and that, although she has retired from active service, she continues to learn and update herself about twenty-first-century knowledge and modes of delivery. Perhaps the politician is not your ordinary corrupt leader, but is God-fearing, and is initiating projects that benefit grassroots communities.

As the semester progresses, we learn that it is risky to approach a problem from one default point of view, which, as the nuclear cow exercise has demonstrated, contains unexamined stereotypes, tropes, and positions that have become unquestioned precisely because they have become common sense, knee-jerk and “natural,” so much so that we are unable to critically examine the premises of the exercise. What was the problem of the exercise, and what is the problem with that problem? How is the problem framed and why is that framing problematic? Why do we have to leave earth? If it has become unlivable, how did we come to this situation? Beyond age, gender, and profession, what else do we need to know about each character? Come to think of it: Why leave anybody at all? Aren’t all human lives important? Why can’t we all stay and figure this out?

At least one or two groups came to ask these questions and have come to the decision that nobody leaves except for the “nuclear cow,” which they discovered after a quick Google search is no “cow” at all but a medical laboratory device. Perhaps the pilot and the cow can come back—if there is any earth or humans to come back to—with pertinent data. In other words, at least a few groups were willing to take risks, explore and imagine other options and other possibilities, get out of the box, their defaults, and their comfort zones.

In a related exercise, the realization that they could have approached the problem from a more nuanced humanist perspective is captured in a meme from one of the students, which she submitted after we asked them to put a caption in one of the photographs from another exercise, entitled: Role-Play a Disaster Through a Tableau. The photo in Fig. 16.1 depicts one group preparing for their final pose, the final tableau output of which aimed to portray a group of people who are preparing to evacuate following early warnings of a volcanic eruption. After we posted this “stolen” photo on the Students Bulletin Board of UVLe with the instruction “Caption this,” one student re-purposed and captioned it to refer to how most of the groups responded to the Nuclear Cow exercise, and how they have since rethought this response.

The Nuclear Cow case shows that students tend to think, feel, and behave according to what my psychologist colleague refers to as “cultural scripts,” and which I refer to—drawing on the ecocritical frame—as “tropes,” which underline our habits of thinking towards our home, our ecosystem, as well as our relationship with non-human world within that ecosystem. Tropes are boxes that limit the possibilities for generating novel insights and actions. In the following sections, I outline some of the main characteristics of the tropes and the positions, using the terms from Garrard (Fig. 16.1).⁸

Fig. 16.1

Screenshot of a Meme posted on the UVLe Bulletin Board in response to the instruction “Caption this” (Photo credit: Leonardo Rosete; Meme by Jyllean Marye Tupaz)

2.1 Going Beyond the Apocalyptic Trope: The Unlivable Earth in Popular Culture

From the Nuclear Cow exercise, we learn that students tend to immediately assume that a group of people have to leave earth because it has become unlivable. This apocalyptic, doomsday trope is retold in many different ways in popular culture, particularly in movies, such as Bird Box, Day After Tomorrow, the Avengers: Endgame, the Book of Eli, and Mad Max, among many others. The Nuclear Cow scenario recalls such films as Elysium (2013), which talks about a new world hovering above earth available only to a privileged few who have the means to pay for the passage. A spaceship flies in out of the ravaged earth, inhabited by the wretched poor and a luxurious habitat shielded by a force field, where the inhabitants live free from disease, hunger and the many pains and discomforts of life on earth—until rebels from the lower classes demand to be included and thereby disturb the perfect system.

From an Eco-Marxist position, the film comments on contemporary political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation, transhumanism, health care, and worker exploitation. This position takes diligent note of the complex aspects of identities, and the inequalities that arise out of uneven structures and relations. The position becomes a springboard for asking questions, such as Who are most exposed to risks? Who are most vulnerable? How do we develop our capacities to reduce these risks? These questions lead us to conclude that ecological problems are also structural problems intricately connected with poverty, lack of water, food, shelter, and education and that these lack make certain sectors of the population more vulnerable and exposed to hazards and risks than others.

Geographically, the Philippines is one of the countries in the Global South that is most exposed to risks from climate change. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, surrounded by naturally warm waters that will likely get even warmer as average sea surface temperatures continue to rise. Warm waters, along with wind regional patterns or currents can affect the Philippines in various ways.⁹ To some extent, according to the Climate Reality Project, “this is a normal pattern: the ocean surface warms as it absorbs sunlight. The ocean then releases some of its heat into the atmosphere, creating wind and rain clouds. However, as the ocean’s surface temperature increases over time from the effects of climate change, more and more heat is released into the atmosphere. This additional heat in the ocean and air can lead to stronger and more frequent storms—which is exactly what we’ve seen in the Philippines over the last decade (emphasis mine).”

Despite being one of—if not the—most vulnerable to climate change,¹⁰ The Philippines is one of the low carbon emitters compared to the top emitters like the US and China.¹¹ This is probably one of the reasons why activists from the Philippines are among the most articulate and passionate in the climate justice movement. “Owing to our long history of natural disasters and inadequate government support, Filipinos are known to forge international solidarity among highly vulnerable countries,” according to Alanah Torralba, who produced a series entitled “Daluyong: Sights and sites of climate change in the Philippines held in Quezon City, September 2019.”¹² But while Filipinos are at the forefront of demanding accountability from rich nations and polluting industries, the question is: who will punish/reward those who increase or decrease their carbon emissions, especially when it is difficult, not only to establish jurisdiction but also cause and effect. As Elaine Kamarck (2019)  asks, “if coal plants in China and cattle ranching in Australia increase their outputs of greenhouse gases in one year and there are droughts in Africa and floods in Europe, who is responsible?” And if responsibility and the cause and effect are tracked down, who will prosecute, who will be prosecuted, and how? If the United Nations tells us that climate change is very serious, can we rely upon them to enforce or execute the international agreements aiming to address their catastrophic forecasts?

Calls for collective action, instead of inertia, as Cordal eloquently expresses through his art are important and necessary. But without awareness of structural inequities and without the ability to hold corporations, countries, and individuals accountable, no major change can occur. The apocalyptic trope paints a frightening scenario, one that tends to overshadow problems of social justice at the local, national, and international levels, and one which cannot proceed without an understanding of the structural, social, and political connections between a warmer planet and dangerous climate changes.

2.2 Beyond Anthropocentrism: The Dutch Boy

While Elysium hints at these political and social concerns, its solution is drawn from a cornucopian position, which puts so much faith in technological solutions, or in other words—the ”cornucopia” of wealth, growth, and scientific knowledge. Elysium asserts that such cornucopia must be equitably distributed. The cornucopian position is also apparent in another example, Geostorm (released 2019), which shows the world’s leaders and scientists coming together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep the world safe from the natural disasters that threatened the planet. The satellite network was nicknamed “Dutch Boy,” referring to the story of a boy who plugged a hole in the dike with his finger, in order to hold off a coming deluge that was threatening to sink his village.¹³ The Dutch Boy bought his village time to escape to safety and to make the necessary repairs. In Geostorm, however, the Dutch Boy assured the world that the devastation can be held off. It is a technological fix—a way of controlling nature and, as one of the characters put it in a crucial scene, a way of playing God. With satellites plugging the damage, the world’s populations do not have to change their ways, lifestyles, and attitudes; they do not have to understand why the weather is behaving the way it does. But they are safe. After a few years, the satellites malfunction due to a sinister plot, and Dutch Boy could no longer keep at bay the series of freak disasters building up to a giant Geostorm—until the hero steps in just in time to save the world from total destruction. With the bad guys eliminated, it is assumed that a much improved and failsafe Dutch Boy will be resurrected to keep the world safe from the Geostorms of the future. With the power of technology, the problems of global warming can be “plugged.” In fact, the problem, from the cornucopian perspective, might not be that serious, after all.

Despite mounting scientific evidence on the effects of climate change, there remains a belief or perception that the seriousness of global warming is largely exaggerated. For example, in the US, a Gallup poll conducted for the past two decades shows that about a third to almost half of the public holds this belief.¹⁴ The persistence of such perceptions can be due to many factors: the cornucopian belief in the power of technology, the inability to grasp the complexity of the issue, and the difficulty of establishing cause and effect, between, for example, coal plants and carbon emissions in one part of the world and Super typhoons like Yolanda (international codename Haiyan) in the Philippines. In contrast, when dead fish float on top of Manila Bay, it is not hard to understand the link between what is happening in the Bay and the garbage being dumped into it.

Those who do understand the connection are indifferent¹⁵; others are probably in denial. Still others may be so overwhelmed with helplessness and inertia, they could take the fatalistic response—“we are all going to die anyway.” Like Cordal’s submerged, huddled figures, the apocalyptic scenario of rising sea levels can leave us paralyzed and immobilized with inaction, confusion, and dread.¹⁶

The apocalyptic trope and the cornucopian positions may at first glance appear as opposite assumptions clustered around two extremes: one is grounded in action, based on technological solutions; and the other is based on a resigned, fatalist, inactive response. What they have in common is an anthropocentric view of the environment, which is considered of no inherent value and accorded importance only in so far as it is of interest to human wealth, health, and welfare. Nature is separate from the human realm; it exists out there in the external world. At times, it can be mindlessly and randomly powerful, unpredictable, and destructive; at other times, it can be managed, known, and controlled. Swinging between extremes, depending on the situation, humans view the environment mechanistically—nature and the rest of the nonhuman world is an inert, inanimate resource that can be exploited for human interest.

2.3 The Pastoral Landscape in the Wilderness Mode: Female and Femaleness as Objects of Sight

The nonhuman world is not just a source of food, shelter, clothing, and other basic needs; it is also a source of emotional retreat, leisure, and aesthetic pleasure. We go to beaches and mountains and other places seemingly left “unspoiled,” “pristine,” or untouched by human interventions, at least on the surface. In concrete and actual terms, in the age of capitalism, we know that virtually nothing is left untouched. Resorts are carved out of landscapes, hotels are built for our comfort as we go snorkeling, trekking, or birdwatching. We go to Tagaytay or Baguio to picnic, enjoy the view, with some of us opting to live there on a long-term or periodic basis. When we reach the peak of the mountain, we take a picture as proof of having been there and conquering, not only the landscape but also ourselves and our weaknesses. Nature and its beauty become a photo op, a painting, a film, and a romantic song or dance in the pastoral or wilderness mode, where the former highlights the bucolic calm of the countryside.

The wilderness trope, on the other hand, finds solace in the primeval—at times terrifying and exotic beauty of the wild—a stable, unchanging Heart of Darkness which lies at the core of human existence stripped of the veneer of civilization. We wish to protect, preserve, and save such images and instances of wilderness, not for the environment’s own sake, but for our own so that at the end of the day, we can seek refuge in that space and recharge.

The anthropocentric and mechanistic view of the environment is anchored on a hierarchical relationship between elements that make up an ecosystem, along class and gender lines. The Eco-feminist position draws attention to, among others, the language of patriarchy and its system of representation. There are certain terms associated with being female: the nature, the earth, and the land, which as we have earlier discussed are resources that sustain man’s survival. In the Nuclear Cow exercise, femaleness is associated with reproduction and entertainment, and this is why the young exotic dancer is at the top of the list of those who are going to board the spaceship to escape the unlivable earth.

We can also detect this meaning system in the use of terms: Nature is always the nurturing Mother Nature, which according to the apocalyptic trope, will be lost to us, if we do not do something about it. In various images, woman is associated with the beautiful, pastoral landscape, and functions as a poster girl for the bucolic, as seen for example in National Artist Fernando Amorsolo’s comely barrio lass/dalagang Pilipina. As the Marxist critic John Berger¹⁷ famously and succinctly stated: Men Act, Women Appear. The woman is the object of the gaze, they look at themselves as objects of sight. In classic advertisements of the Marlboro Man, for example, men are seen as active doers, as pioneers who conquer and tame wild lands and animals through masculine power and skills, much akin to colonizing and taming another planet or ecosystem, in case the earth ends or dies.

2.4 Beyond Surface Appearances: Deep Ecology and the Reenchanted World

The mechanistic and anthropocentric positions and tropes can also be described as instances of shallow ecology. Saving or leaving the earth, as we have seen in apocalyptic films, is important for the sake of saving our skins. The strategies are often short-term, quick fixes. Recycle, reuse, and create substitutes. Use technology creatively and sustainably. There is no accompanying overhaul in lifestyle and consciousness. On the other hand, deep ecology posits a change in paradigm. Home is not just a place where humans dwell, separate from the non-human world; home includes that world, which is not an inert resource, but is alive, with an agency or will of its own. Morris Berman describes that connectedness as one of enchantment, where rocks, trees, rivers, and clouds were all seen—millions of years ago down to the eve of the scientific revolution—as “wondrous, alive, and human beings felt at home in this environment. The cosmos, in short, was a place of belonging.” Today, at least at the level of the mind, the story of the modern world is that of progressive disenchantment. “From the sixteenth century on, mind has been expunged from the natural world.”¹⁸

For deep ecologists, the call is for a reenchantment of the world, for reconnection with nature, which we will protect and save for its intrinsic value. The process of reenchantment is long-term, rooted in magic, beyond logic, beyond surface appearances. The relationship between humans and non-humans is egalitarian, not one based on hierarchy and domination. The self is one with, instead of separate from the rest of creation.

In the Philippines, this sense of interconnectedness beyond the self is concretely manifested in the practice of “Pakikipag-kapwa”¹⁹ which roughly translates into treating your kapwa (fellow beings) as equals. Kapwa cannot be framed or subsumed under the I/they, self/others, I/non-I binarist Western schema; as kapwa, one is not separated from “the others” but rather the self, the “One” is inextricably part of others. Pakikipag-kapwa translates into helping out, or providing “tulong,” not as a matter of “charity” or simple volunteerism (as in “giving back,” for example, through volunteer work for relief operations) but should be seen as addressing a need (kailangan), and that it is but the humane (makatao) and proper or right thing to do (dapat, karapatdapat) for a person to retain and reclaim a sense of dignity (karangalan, pagkatao, amor propio) and humanity (pagiging tao). Pantay pantay na karapatan or equal rights are not just about addressing discrepancies in what is delivered and what is promised in terms of material and basic needs, but rather they are about not being scorned and treated as less than human just because one lives in poverty or are elderly (like the 72-year-old schoolteacher in the Nuclear Cow exercise), or ill and incapacitated, or because they are “mere” animals like our pets or our livestock. To be deprived of resources is equal to being deprived of the means, not just to survive or address basic needs, but to live decently and to be treated decently as equals. In deep ecological terms, our kapwa can include not only humans but also other creatures in an ecosystem where Man does not have dominion over others.

Deep ecology is exacting and requires a lot of time and effort; consciousness and lifestyle overhauls do not happen overnight, especially since—as previously pointed out—positions and tropes are deeply ingrained and are not that easy to unlearn. But perhaps we can find and learn from traces of deep ecological practices that have survived in traditional societies through time. Among the Aytas of Pinatubo, land is life, not a commodity; it is a legacy handed down to them by Apo Namalyari. To lose their land is to lose their lives and their claim to dignity and humanity. The essay by Cynthia Zayas may prove instructive, at the very least, for understanding why the Aytas were resistant to evacuating despite Pinatubo’s then impending eruption.²⁰ My essay on the Pasig River and a ritual in Batanes, where I conducted a short fieldwork for a documentary also represents an effort to understand how a community can preserve a watershed from a deep ecology position.²¹

2.5 Ecophenomenology and The Sensory World of Art

Deep ecology also intersects in significant ways with ecophenomenology, which draws on some of the principles outlined by Heideggerian philosophy. The first concept—that of intermodality (as formulated by Paolo Knill)—is anchored on the sharpening of our senses, and being more attuned to our environment, to feel and experience (danas, dama) the world around us beyond the literal and beyond our usual ideas of what home is. Art, with its powerful resources, can open up to the world and make it come alive, thus expanding our initial contexts, which becomes consequently molded by this constant exchange between the body and the environment. As we attune ourselves to the living, breathing world around us, we develop a heightened sense of being that makes us more active participants to even the most subtle, mundane moments of our everyday life.”²² In the process, we are reminded that home is contiguous with a larger world. As the Robin Williams character in August Rush tells us, Music (and perhaps all the other arts) “is God’s little reminder that there is something else besides us in the universe and there is harmonic connection between all living beings everywhere, even the stars.”

Art and artmaking are thus more than expressions, reflections, or representations of emotions, events, or ideas. Nor is it a finished product or object—“a perspective that puts more emphasis on the outcome (artwork) instead of the process (work of art). The art as object paradigm sees the arts as a tool for producing an expected, often profitable, outcome”²³—as collection, for example; as object of display; as status symbol, etc. On the other hand, art is a process of poiesis—of bringing forth through creative revealing, responsiveness, and interconnectedness or pakikipagkapwa, thus opening up many other forms and opportunities for thinking, acting, and feeling outside the box.

Poiesis is about imaging and imagining other worlds—not to escape this one, like what we see in apocalyptic movies—but by making present and bursting open a broader range of experiences, interactions, and realizations. It does not mean we ignore the overwhelming feeling of grief and pain or wish away the death and destruction resulting from the impact of climate change and pretend they do not and will not happen. We acknowledge the feeling and the event and put it in perspective and a larger context—our bodies, other bodies, and the world around us. When we open ourselves to the rhythm of the cosmos and the pulses of the larger life world, we are able to sync the beats of our heart and of our breaths with that larger world. In effect, we draw strength from that process of fully sensing and interacting with the material, spatial, and temporal environment.

To be intermodal and poietic is to realize that at the very heart of our defaults, we look at nature from an anthropocentric view. We think of nature as resource to keep us alive, and now that resource is dwindling, we think up of technological ways to control or reduce this deterioration. We save the planet for our sakes. We save it so that we won’t perish. But what if we think beyond ourselves, beyond these defaults, our cultural scripts about being in control? Anything can happen. Buildings may fail, no matter how hard we try to make them as safe as possible. Mountains will shed their skins, the ground beneath us will move, and volcanoes will explode whether we like it or not, and not according to OUR timetable. We could shift perspectives—from being man-centered, with the view that we humans are the center of the universe, and that nature is inert, resource to a perspective that makes us a small part of an ecosystem: much like musical notes. We can only understand ourselves in relation to other notes, either as part of a melody or a chord.

3 Grounded Creativity: A Suggested Study Guide

The preceding discussion of tropes and positions demonstrate that climate change is an Ecological Problem that cannot be understood by one discipline alone. My discussion is a contribution from the arts and humanities, which highlights the aesthetic, social, and cultural nature of climate change and the role of deeply ingrained and widely held beliefs that shape our relationship to our ecology. The sources of the examples I have cited are drawn from our lessons in DRMAPS, which targets students at the tertiary level, but it is also my hope that these lessons and case studies can also benefit all educators, including those at the basic education level. The following summary, which I cull from my Study Guide on the Eco-critical framework might prove instructive:

The Summary by Way of a Study Guide Follows:

• 1. Tropes can underline and shape our attitudes and behavior towards home, as well as our relationship with the non-human world.

• 2. The pastoral, apocalyptic, and wilderness tropes are anthropocentric—focused on the perception of the non-human world as resources that are inert and without agency (mechanistic), rather than inherently valuable (biocentric), with an agency and will of their own (organismic). The mechanistic worldview is said to belong to the sphere of shallow ecology.

• 3. The human-centered and mechanistic view of the non-human world can lead to minimal change in habits, should this resource be endangered or threatened. A default solution is demonstrated by post-apocalyptic films, which show much faith in technology and capitalism’s capability to correct its damages (cornucopia). In everyday life, we see this cornucopian view through such solutions as “green capitalism,” modernization of jeeps, and sustainable mining, which are input and capital-intensive, and may in the long run, prove to be short-term solutions to problems that are long-term and global, as we have seen in the way the ideal worlds of Elysium and Geostorm can backfire and malfunction after a period of perceived safety and comfort.

• 4. The mechanistic and anthropocentric worldview are also hinged on deeply ingrained tropes or cultural scripts about maleness and femaleness. From an eco-feminist position, women are associated with nature (the land) and culture and civilization with men. Such configurations translate into stereotypes and assigned roles that limit the range of what is possible in real life, as we have seen in our Nuclear Cow exercise.

• 5. On the other hand, the organismic and biocentric positions call for, not only short-term solutions and superficial changes in lifestyle (e.g., recycling and segregation of waste) but also a change in consciousness. It is a consciousness that fosters a sense of belonging, a sense of place, and a sense of identification and respect for the non-human world. This deep ecological sense acknowledges the importance of scientific literacy, involving technical and “objective” solutions, e.g., early warning systems, and structural adjustments. On the other hand, deep ecology also pays attention to those areas of human life that are imaginative, beyond the logical and literal, and deeply affective. Bridging the gap between the domains of rationality and the domain of feelings and perceptions is one important step in understanding such issues as climate change.

• 6. The tropes are deeply ingrained and internalized narratives and scripts that naturalize the way things are. They are boxes that limit the possibilities for generating novel insights and actions. The pastoral, apocalyptic, and wilderness tropes efface gender, racial, ethnic, religious, and class differences and inequalities. An Eco-Marxist position takes diligent note of these complex aspects of identities, and the inequalities that arise out of uneven structures and relations, at local, national, and international levels. An Eco-Marxist position examines problems of accountability, social justice, and other socioeconomic and political concerns that may lead to concrete political actions that are informed, multidisciplinary, and multidimensional.

• 7. One way we can contribute to the urgent and serious problem of climate change is through communication and education strategies that can explain the complexities of the “science” of climate change, in a way that goes beyond stock knowledge, clichés, and tropes. We look for backstories, focusing not on the EVENTS themselves but on yet-unexplored areas of inquiry, yet-to-be uncovered blind spots, and uncritically received defaults (for example, in media coverage). In this lesson, we call for the sharpening of the senses (intermodality) and poiesis, going beyond fixed outcomes, towards the processual, figurative, imaginative, and intuitive. We are called upon to go beyond the “default” of tropes towards generating concepts and courses of action that are novel and useful but also grounded on diligent research. In DRMAPS, we call this GROUNDED CREATIVITY.

- End of Study Guide -

4 Conclusion

4.1 From Object to Process, from Art Work to Work of ART

In sum, several paradigm shifts have been forwarded in this paper, as shown in the following pairs:

• 1. Anthropocentrism, viz. biocentrism.

• 2. Mechanistic, viz. organismic.

• 3. Shallow ecology, viz. deep ecology and eco-phenomenological frame.

• 4. Cornucopia, viz. eco-Marxist and eco-feminist frame.

But the most important paradigm shifts, I would like to stress from a perspective honed in the humanities is the shift in concept of art—from one of object (art work) to process (work of art) and from one of fixed and prescriptive outcomes to one of openness to many possibilities within the “noise” and routines of the everyday. This shift suggests that understanding and responding to climate change involves crossing the divide between climate change as a scientific and technological phenomenon (Problem of Ecology), on the one hand, and on the other hand, as a cultural Ecological Problem. An eco-critical method and frame goes beyond these binaries, suggesting a more well-rounded encounter between, not only professionals and experts in the natural and physical sciences but also experts in the social sciences and the humanities as well. Policymakers can provide and find ways, platforms, and venues, not only for experts to talk to each other but also to fishers, poets, farmers, weavers, carpenters, and so on so that we can work together through collaborations that are attuned, not only with the “science” of climate change but also keenly attentive to the manifold textures and shapes of the non-human and human worlds. In the humanities, we believe in the power of the intermodal and poietic imagination, and it is this power that we all need to recover in these dire times. From such transformative and processual viewpoint, we may find a springboard for action, instead of collective inertia depicted in the tiny, almost invisible figures in Cordal’s powerful artworks.

As disarmingly expressed by Nitz Sezcon of Iligan, a wise woman whom I have encountered in my travels giving art workshops to traumatized communities with the artist Alma Quinto: Healing the earth means healing, not just poverty in the material and economic sense, but the poverty of the imagination and the spirit.