Climate Art For Congress

Climate Art for Congress is an initiative started by the Climate Museum here in New York to mobilize young people of all ages to speak up about the climate through artistic and creative mediums. The initiative took a policy focus and demonstrated the connection between the current COVID-19 crisis and the Climate Crisis. In order to participate, young people were asked to first educate themselves about climate and understand how it affects them personally. Then they were asked to, or get a parent to help, find their local representatives and do some research about their current stance on environmental policy and legislature, for example, the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, and write a personalized note to their representative either thanking them for committing to environmental policy or urging them to do so.

Due to COVID-19’s massive effect on the global economy, there will be a lot of new economic legislation, so now is a great opportunity for us to urge our representatives to do just that, represent us, and incorporate green and sustainable policy in the new legislation. The next step is where young people really get to express themselves, which is to create an illustration, poem, or any other artistic expression that represents how we feel about our current position regarding climate. We then were asked to write a personalized message about why we care about our environment on the art, along with our message to our representative.

I thought this was a really great way to get young people involved, especially through creative expression. This was also a really good experience for me to educate myself about not only environmental policy in general but how my personal representatives stand on these issues. Thankfully, they have already supported the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, so I thanked them first for representing my interests, and then urged them to continue to do so when drafting COVID-19 legislation. I also think this draws the important connection between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Climate Crisis, and how they can be more related than one may think.

All in all, as I stated in my submission, my generation has the right to a liveable future, and it’s uplifting to see us taking action to make that future a reality.

-Harry Justice