Climate change communication beyond the digital divide: Exploring cartography’s role and privilege in climate action

Abstract

Despite widespread acceptance amongst researchers, climate change and responses to it remain a socially and politically debated topic. Within cartography and cognate disciplines, this has often been construed as an issue of communication: maps are tools for communication and better maps will lead to greater understanding of and responses to climate change. While existing research has shown some support for the efficacy of such approaches, this article calls into question the underlying assumptions of access and equity that pervade such communicative approaches to mapmaking and data visualization. Two new case studies from the authors’ research group highlight the importance of greater consideration of equity and access for climate change communication cartography (CCCC): first, an experiment on the use of storytelling and narrative in maps of climate impacts and, second, an augmented reality tool that presented users with storm surge information for their region. These two cases lead us to an interrogation of the assumptions that undergird claims for the rhetorical power of using cartographic stories and augmented reality. It is, we argue, somewhat of a luxury to experience climate change through stories, not lived experiences or through augmented reality, as opposed to forced displacement. We conclude by reinterrogating the map communication model in light of understandings of maps as constantly made and remade by both map author and map user. By calling into question the ontogenetic security of maps, CCCC can better understand both the impacts and equities of its maps.