The overwhelming consequences of climate change ignore individuals and borders. Our globe and its people are experiencing floods, fires, an increase in tornadoes, hurricanes, heat beyond recent historical standards, receding glaciers, and a risk to water tables that are needed to sustain life.
We can no longer assume things will get back to normal. It appears these changes cannot be reversed, only slowed down. The greed of so-called developed nations and our reliance on fossil fuels has locked our generation and the ones to follow into extreme climate patterns.
Another corresponding and disturbing trend has emerged as well. The populations who have had the least to do with producing the carbon emissions causing climate change are the most likely to suffer its devastating consequences. In a 2019 report to the UN, Special Rapporteur Philip Alston used the term “Climate Apartheid” to characterize the reality of a bleak future in which “the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer” (Morgan McCordick). Catherine Bestemen notes in her recent book Militarized Global Apartheid, “while the world’s 48 least developed nations collectively account for less than one percent of carbon emissions responsible for rising temperatures, their residents are five times more likely to die from climate-related disaster than those in the rest of the world.”
The New Normal likewise ignores individuals and borders, leaving us each to consider our own and others’ place in these scenes of a changed and changing climate. This art installation is meant to be experienced by exploring the exterior and interior to gain understanding and stimulate thinking. Roaring oceans give way to retreating coastlines. Climate change effects social change. Which of these climate realities have you internalized? Which remain outside your experience? Which resources have made that true for you and not for others? How can we face and respond to these challenges as a local, national, and global society of human beings?