In her keynote at ADHO’s 2014 conference, Bethany Nowviskie acknowledged the seriousness of climate change and mass extinction and asked: “What does that knowledge do to DH in the year 2014?” Now, a decade and many weather disasters later, the impacts of climate change are becoming ever clearer. What responsibilities does the digital humanities community bear in addressing the climate crisis? How might focusing on these responsibilities catalyze reinvention? This poster will support continued conversation about digital humanities in the Anthropocene. To provide context, it will synthesize work about digital humanities and the climate crisis; then it will pose several open-ended questions to spark conversation. Attendees will be invited to jot down their responses on post-it notes and share them, so that the poster will act as both a springboard for and record of discussion.
Several have taken up Nowviskie’s call for the DH community to address climate change. Stéfan Sinclair and Stephanie Posthumous (2017) point to four “branches” of environmental digital humanities: reflecting on how technology mediates experiences of nature, examining how digital technologies impact the environment, using them to build public awareness of environmental issues, and employing them to share and analyze environmental content. “Digital Humanities and the Climate Crisis: A Manifesto” (2021) calls for digital humanists to “probe the values, the power structures, and the future imaginaries that underpin sustainable solutions”, to understand and address environmental impacts from a feminist and post-colonialist stance, and to reimagine how we function as a global professional community so that we minimize our environmental impact. Several of the manifesto’s authors joined with others at DH centers in the UK, Ireland and Northern Europe to form the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition. “The Digital Humanities Climate Coalition Toolkit” (2023) provides practical guidance for responsibly using computationally intensive processes, designing research practices with attention toward climate impacts, and advocating for institutional change.
Given climate change’s urgency, organizations and individuals have a responsibility to reimagine our work so that we can minimize carbon output and prepare for climate impacts. In 2012, I articulated potential values for the digital humanities community, such as experimentation and diversity. Given the climate crisis, I would now advocate adopting sustainability as a value, as the American Library Association has done. According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, sustainability encompasses “human and ecological health, social justice, secure livelihoods, and a better world for all generations.” What might it mean for us to account for the environmental impacts of our work and to consider how the digital humanities community can use its expertise and resources to promote climate justice? Embracing sustainability could mean pursuing minimal computing, using data centers powered by renewable energy, or making deliberate decisions about what not to preserve. It might also entail pursuing research projects that collect and interpret environmental data, encourage public dialogue about climate justice, or critique digital infrastructures. It might involve reinventing professional organizations and meetings to minimize their carbon impact. Being conscious of the environmental impact of our work could inspire us to reach new audiences, pursue research in more lightweight ways, and establish more resilient digital infrastructures. Rather than supplying answers, I will use this poster to frame questions, spark discussion, and collect ideas, which will be shared with the broader public.