Climate Truth Crisis: Empowering young designers for future democracies

The project brings together students and staff from seven art and design academies in The Hague, Reykjavík, Barcelona, London, Vilnius, Tallinn, and Sarajevo to explore the impact of climate change denial and disinformation on democratic society. The initiative specifically focuses on how to empower young visual communication students to assess climate-related news and visualize the spread of disinformation. The project utilizes infographics, videos, and visual storytelling to engage the public in understanding the influence of industrial lobbying, greenwashing, conspiracy theories, and social media bots on democratic processes. The leading research question is: If democracy requires that voters are well-informed to make political choices, how can visual communication engage people in serious issues and help them distinguish news from fake news to effectively drive sustainable change? Climate change skepticism has taken various forms, ranging from scientific articles expressing uncertainty to the spread of disinformation on social media and the so-called “denial machine” (Dunlap 2013). Particularly, forces backed by industry and right-wing think tanks have launched campaigns to create uncertainty regarding the facts and impacts of climate change. Visual tools for knowledge production and explanation are commonly used in the sciences but are often overlooked or considered merely cosmetic (Galison 2002). Visual communication design is a specialized field with expertise and a growing knowledge base on the use, misuse, and cognitive effects of visual information display. Additionally, visual storytelling offers opportunities for emotional engagement through subjective exploration. In a shared dialogue, visual communication designers can create narratives that transform abstract concepts into personal experiences while fostering empathetic discussions about societal challenges.