Meet the 2018 Fellow
Our inaugural Climate Art Fellow was Audrey Carver, a long-time Affiliated Artist of the Climate Science Alliance. Audrey spent the summer of 2018 with the Alliance team and partners and toured our unique ecosystems to gain insight and inspiration for her assigned project — to translate the findings of the recently published report, "San Diego County Ecosystems: The Ecological Impacts of Climate Change on a Biodiversity Hotspot".
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Faces of Change
Art inspired by "San Diego County Ecosystems: The Ecological Impacts of Climate Change on a Biodiversity Hotspot"
San Diego County is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots — boasting more taxa of plants and mammals than any other in the United States — which is simultaneously experiencing climate change impacts and population growth. The Climate Science Alliance teamed up with local ecologists and climatologists to assess these impacts in a technical report, "San Diego County Ecosystems: The Ecological Impacts of Climate Change on a Biodiversity Hotspot", that informs California’s 4th Climate Change Assessment. Audrey Carver, the Alliance’s Summer Art Fellow created this full series, “Faces of Change,” to help people better understand the report and better connect with the science on a personal level. Each watercolor painting illustrates climate impacts on key species from each chapter and adds a portrait of a member of the community who will be directly affected.
Artist Statement:
"San Diego County is one of the world’s critical biodiversity hotspots— home to several hundred species, many of which exist only here, and many that are threatened. Now, with climate changing and human development expanding, the threat to this fragile and complicated ecosystem is urgent. In a new report, the Climate Science Alliance has outlined five major climate impacts that will alter ecosystems and impact people in San Diego County with the goal that a better understanding of climate science we can better protect our natural and human communities.
In this series, I have illustrated key species and factors from each of the impacts in the report, paired with a member of the community who is directly affected by the issue. I wanted to pay tribute to the long history of collaboration between science and art. My goal was to help people better understand the report and connect to it emotionally. Climate change is not only happening around us, it is happening to us. Now is the time to take responsibility, mitigate its effects, and create a sustainable future, before it is too late."