Climate Art for Congress

6 min readApr 3, 2020

A SCIENCE, ART, AND CIVICS PROJECT FOR STUDENTS AT ALL GRADE LEVELS

BACKGROUND

Some students may want to read this background section with a parent or teacher.

It’s difficult to consider the other crisis — the climate crisis — in the midst of Covid. But it’s also imperative. Legislation passed now in response to the virus can either greatly worsen, or greatly improve, our prospects for climate progress. For example, legislation can either support clean energy and climate justice initiatives, or it can instead provide bailout money and other relief to fossil fuel companies, which have been aggressively seeking to exploit the Covid crisis.

Our goal is for students at all grade levels to create illustrated notes for us to send to their representatives in the House and the Senate. More Covid legislation is coming up. Your notes will ask representatives to emphasize in those bills the equitable transition to a clean energy economy — in other words, to focus on the fundamental right of all young people to a livable future.

Young people can’t vote, but they have agency and a huge stake in what’s happening. We’ve seen high school students take a leadership role on climate over the last two years. With this initiative, we seek to elevate the voices of younger children as well.

The Covid crisis has already caused profound loss and suffering, and will leave us with a very different world. Rather than compounding these terrible human costs by hindering action on climate, which would cause even greater human trauma, we must insist on ambitious climate policy now to improve our future. Again, the bills to be passed in the weeks and months to come can take either a negative or a positive direction on this. You can move us in the right direction by following the steps below.

READY TO MAKE YOURSELF HEARD?

INSTRUCTIONS

Below is a series of steps that will allow you to voice your demand for a climate-safe, livable future with Members of Congress as they pass legislation in response to Covid.

STEP 1: Learn some science about climate and Covid

Learn about climate change and why we must act now. Here’s a fantastic website from the team at the Alliance for Climate Education that has a series of short videos to explore: Our Climate Our Future. Here’s another fantastic website from NASA with a variety of resources and activities: Climate Kids.

On Covid, here’s a great New York Times podcast episode: A Kid’s Guide to Coronavirus.

It’s important to think about connections between the coronavirus and the climate crisis. Check out our earlier blog posts to explore this subject.

STEP 2a: Who represents you in Congress?

Identify your Member of Congress and Senators (the Senate is part of Congress, too!) on this website.

STEP 2b: Find out where they stand on climate

With a parent’s help (for younger students), research your elected officials’ positions and actions on climate. For example:

Do they support policies that reduce carbon pollution and promote climate justice and equity, like the Green New Deal? Here’s an excellent recent article explaining why we need climate policy at the center of Covid legislation. For younger students, a teacher or a parent can help you with any parts that are hard to understand. (Check it out: it was young people who put the Green New Deal on the political map.) You can find out whether your representatives support the Green New Deal here and here.
Have they committed to the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, making it clear they won’t accept campaign money from or be influenced by Big Oil? Check out nofossilfuelmoney.org.
Have they criticized the US’s announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement? Here’s a Reuters article to begin your investigation. (What is the Paris Agreement, anyway?! Google it and find out!)

STEP 3a: Voice your opinion!

Write a short handwritten note expressing your views to your Members of Congress. Here’s a sample—not a script! Your note can be shorter than this. It’s what you think that matters.

The coronavirus crisis is truly awful, but it doesn’t cancel or even slow down climate change.The crisis we’ll be living with for many years to come is the climate crisis — which experts say will cause more pandemics like Covid, among many other harms. If we take serious action now, we can reduce those harms. A livable future is a fundamental right. We all deserve it, regardless of where we live, how much money we have, our race and gender, or our age. For me, it’s even more important because young people have a longer future. Please make climate progress and climate justice key factors in your work on Covid legislation.

Update (5/28/20): If possible, please use a sheet of blank, unlined paper. This helps ensure a strong image quality for your work!

STEP 3b: Use your creativity to make an impact

Create an illustration on the rest of the paper. How are you feeling these days? What makes you feel hope for the future? Make art about either of these questions or anything else you like.

Update (4/5/20): In response to your questions, please feel free to submit any form of art — poetry, music, anything by you. Some of these media may be harder for us to transmit to Members of Congress, but we will definitely feature them across our own platforms and we will do our best to send them along!

STEP 3c: Show us your work!

Send us your illustrated note by filling out this form.

For best image quality, we recommend doing a color scan of your letter. “Genius Scan” is a free smartphone app that will do the trick. We will color print your note and mail it to your Member of Congress and both of your Senators.

Please note that for privacy purposes, we will not share your Congressional District in the gallery.

If you have any questions, please email us at climateart@climatemuseum.org.

STEP 4: You’re a published artist! Spread the word!

Check out the gallery on our website and find your note! The gallery will be in alphabetical order — look for your name.

We will feature selected notes across our digital platforms, including our landing page, so that your work can inspire your peers!

Please tell your friends, classmates, and teachers and share this work on social media to spread the word. Make sure to tag @climatemuseum and use the hashtag #ClimateArtForCongress.