Visualizing climate science: the poster between science and politics 
 
Sria Chatterjee*, Karolina Sobecka*, Jamie Allen,* Solveig Suess* & Stefan 
Brönnimann** 
  
*Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures / Critical Media Lab, Basel 
Academy of Art and Design, FHNW, Freilager-Platz 1, Basel (Jamie.Allen@fhnw.ch) 
**Institute of Geography, Climatology, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 
Bern (stefan.broennimann@giub.unibe.ch) 
 
The geosciences play a role outside of the natural, research sciences as agents 
responding to geopolitical crises like climate change and corporate and military interests 
that seek strategic advantage in planetary repair and control. The notion of the neutrality 
of science has increasingly eroded with researchers more frequently becoming 
embroiled in public deliberation and policy. Geoscientists are being asked to project the 
future of physical earth systems as well as evaluate the performance of policies (Beck 
and Mahony 2018) contributing to solutions and providing metrics for “climate services” 
(Daly and Dilling 2019). How the story of the earth, its climate and ecology, are told, is 
developed in specific ways, evoking different kinds of value and purpose for different 
communities. 
Climate denial think tanks exploit the authority of science by intentionally using 
the languages and forms of scientific communication to sow confusion by presenting 
contradictory conclusions and arguing against climate action (Oreskes & Conway 2011). 
Pointing to colonial and extractive histories of geology and climate science, there are 
communities who urge scientific communities to acknowledge and counter the apolitical 
stance of neutrality. Scientists are more explicitly engaging on the representational, 
ethical and political dimensions of their science, pulling into question the dominant 
ideology of scientific neutrality which still structures much of its institutions’ protocols. 
Research into the ways that discourse can change behaviour is central to the 
dilemma of the commons, and how the mobilization of nomenclature and information 
are best transferred to actionable knowledge (Nerlich 2010). In addition to language, the 
visualization of data, the distribution of images and iconography, and the rendering of 
time-based media (audio and video) all impact the ways in which we treat ecosystems 
and imagine their modulation and adjustment. There are even those who pronounce a 
“spectacle of nature” that has been created through the circulation of overabundant 
images of destroyed and protected ecologies (Igoe 2010). 
Climatology & Climatography of Care, a project by University of Bern’s mLab + 
Critical Media Lab is interested in histories and futures of climatology and 
climatography, not only as scientific trajectories and disciplines, but as means of 
producing and practicing knowledge that are always and increasingly entrenched in 
economic, political and necessarily public debates. An objective of this project is a 
critical rethinking of data visualization and communication through the creation of a 
public poster campaign that references and questions the visual forms that both 
scientific and political posters take. The overall aim is to further investigate the future of 
climate change communication. 
 
For the Swiss 18th Geosciences Meeting (2020), we will present a critical history 
and contemporary analysis of geosciences relevant communications, outlining how 
such visualization explicitly renders information as both scientific, public and therefore 
political. Showing examples of histories, stories and impacts of how both scientific and 
public campaign aesthetics are mobilized in contexts of scientific publication, 
conferences, public events and debate, we aim to articulate discussion as to the ways in 
which communications can of this kind can help to make explicit the goals and 
intentions of the geosciences vis a vis urgent topics like anthropogenic climate change, 
environmental racism, ecological justice, extractive industries. As an interdisciplinary 
group we hope to encourage discussion, questions, inconsistencies and unquestioned 
assumptions at the intersections of exchange within interdisciplinary communities, and 
with publics.  
 
 
 
Image: Left: Lester Beall posters promoting the Rural Electrification Administration, U.S. 
Department of Agriculture (1930) Right: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office’s posters 
promoting the Green New Deal (2019). 
 
References 
Daly, Meaghan, and Lisa Dilling. "The politics of “usable” knowledge: examining the 
development of climate services in Tanzania." Climatic Change 157.1 (2019): 61-80. 
Beck, Silke, and Martin Mahony. "The IPCC and the new map of science and politics." 
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 9.6 (2018): e547. 
Igoe, J. (2010). The spectacle of nature in the global economy of appearances: 
Anthropological engagements with the spectacular mediations of transnational 
conservation. Critique of Anthropology, 30(4), 375-397. 
Nerlich, B., Koteyko, N. and Brown, B., 2010. Theory and language of climate change 
communication. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 1(1), pp.97-110. 
Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2011). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists 
obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury 
Publishing USA.