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How would past societies cope with climate disasters had they known about climate sciences? 

Climate research conducted in India as a play ‘Mausim’ by Kenya Fashaw

-- By Atreyee Bhattacharya

It was a strange (and singular) seeing my climate research in drought-prone swaths of peninsular India, which involved fieldwork, mining colonial era texts and laboratory analysis, getting transformed over the course of the Fall semester of 2020 into fiction -  a virtual short play titled ‘Mausim’ by playwright and poet Kenya Fashaw - as part of a  collaborative project between Boulder Ensemble Theater Company (BETC) and CU’s the Nature, Environment, Science & Technology (NEST) Studio for the Arts. The play (along with three others) is now streaming. Information here  

Going into the project in September, I thought it would be fun and relaxing to be involved in an innovative collaboration of arts and sciences that brought climate research in India to the Boulder community; I thought it would keep my mind off of what we were collectively (and personally) facing in this Covid world. I was not prepared for more. And I was pleasantly surprised and deeply humbled. 

Through the semester, I saw how Kenya use my Powerpoints, papers and climate resources and conversations to find the human theme that I knew was the core of my work but only realized when I saw the first draft of the play: a time travel and a solution in that time travel. Later in the semester as directors and actors breathed life into the play as characters conducting the fieldwork, doing the research and most importantly people who lived through droughts and famines and how they might have averted the worst outcomes had they known what we know today, I found myself wondering, and eventually coming to the heartfelt realization, that the reality of a graph or a table or a simulation is so much more personal than we think it is. 

I found myself wondering would we all be in this place that we are today if we had heeded to scientists (it appears that epidemiologists had warned for years that we are unprepared for a pandemic)? I also wondered, whether scientists could have partnered with artists to impress upon us the possible realities of a pandemic? I have always believed that art breath life into something we cannot see. People, places and events and now sciences (which, let’s face it can inaccessible). Art is like that special telescope or a mass spectrometer that can reveal what we cannot see at a point in time. 

My experience with Kenya, Heather Beasely (of BETC) and all the other creative people who helped me (and I hope you) see things that I knew about so well, will be one of the most profound experiences of my life. And maybe for the first time, after trying for many years through my research, teaching, writing and outreach work to make people see the science of climate research and how challenging climate change will make our lives, I am feeling hopeful. Maybe the answer to show people the climate crisis and fallouts we await is through meaningful collaboration the arts and sciences…with the help of artists who make us think ..who help start conversations.. 

From the article in A&S Magazine:

For Bhattacharya, working with playwright Fashaw was one of the most unique experiences of her life. It helped her see the impacts of her work on individuals, not just communities. 

Bhattacharya is currently a visiting researcher in Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering, a research affiliate in the Center for Asian Studies, and will return this fall as a research affiliate in CIRES. She studies variations in temperature and rainfall related to climate, and the impacts of climate anomalies on human societies, particularly in semi-arid societies in the global south. Her findings help inform climate policymakers and governments about the risks to particular societies from climate variability, from conflict to migration and agriculture. 

The Theatre Festival runs the weekend of January 21-24. 

Read the full A&S article here.