A translation of this article was made possible by a partnership with Planeteando. Una traducción de este artículo fue posible gracias a una asociación con Planeteando.
Six months ago, Raiza Pilatowsky-Gruner and Bernardo Bastién-Olvera had their first son: Mar (Spanish for sea). The happy event made the scientists wonder if they would still be able to organize TierraFest 2024, the biggest Earth science festival in Mexico. But after thinking about it, they decided that they would and that from now on they would be more intentional about reaching out to younger audiences.
The goal of Planeteando, the organization behind TierraFest, has always been to engage all kinds of audiences in a better understanding of what geoscience is and how it relates to issues like global warming, endangered species, and the water crisis that’s intensifying in Mexico City this year.
But TierraFest’s aim is to discuss these problems with a greater focus on possible solutions. (Note: Eos is a sponsor of TierraFest.) The event’s motto for 2024 is “Reimagine a planet for everyone.”
A Festival of SciComm
The festival kicks off with an event for adults called “Beers to cool down the planet,” in which the public and experts from nongovernmental organizations and the Institute of Geology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will have a relaxed conversation about not-so-relaxing topics such as climate justice and politics.
After a few beers on 30 April on the terrace of the Tonala Cinema, the festival moves to the El Rule Cultural Center. On 4 May, this downtown Mexico City building will host 18 workshops and two performances, including a rock show for kids and a Drag Queen Runway on this year’s main theme: transition to more sustainable energy use.
Although the science communication at TierraFest is aimed at people of all ages, Anthony Ramírez Salazar, a geologist at the Institute of Geology at UNAM and editor in chief at Planeteando, believes the festival is especially important for younger audiences because of all the anguish they may feel about global warming.
“Children have not existed in a world where there is no climate anxiety.”
“Children have not existed in a world where there is no climate anxiety,” said Ramírez Salazar. “If your whole life you are hearing about climate change and all the narratives are doom and gloom, you will end up losing hope.”
This lack of hope for the future is sometimes associated with the concept of eco-anxiety. Although there is active debate about this term, a review published in 2022 found that the “distress, worry, or concern related to the climate change crisis” described by eco-anxiety has the potential to cause psychological harm to young people.
“It honestly makes me feel bad because humans have already extinguished too many species and too many ecosystems,” explained Victoria Valentina García Sánchez, an 11-year-old girl who attended TierraFest last year.
Participating in the festival helped her cope with these feelings, Victoria said. Her mother, Jocelyn Sánchez Téllez, is a filmmaker who collaborates with TierraFest to produce documentaries. While accompanying her mother to a shoot, Victoria learned a story that made her feel a little bit better.
“I went to film the tlacuache [opossum] episode with my parents, and there I saw how there was a person named Gaby and she rescued them from being run over and so on.”
These kinds of films are part of a section of TierraFest called TierraFilme. Throughout the day on 4 May, the El Rule Cultural Center will feature 22 films about environmental awareness and award the winner of last year’s competition. This year, TierraFilme will also have a matinee special for children.
A Space of Joy for the Planet
New parents Bastién-Olvera and Pilatowsky-Gruner, who cofounded Planeteando in 2017, are glad they decided to pursue TierraFest 2024. In fact, the birth of their son did not detract from the event but became part of what motivated Bastién-Olvera, a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Pilatowsky-Gruner, a digital communications strategist at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, to create TierraFest as “a safe space, a space of play, a space of joy for the planet,” said Bastién-Olvera.
A message Bastién-Olvera wants to send with this festival is that a response to events like global warming is “to create societies that are more empathetic so that when climate change hits, we will be better prepared.”
Some of the interventions that have been tried to alleviate eco-anxiety are community based, creating opportunities for affirmation, empathy, and understanding.
In addition, Ramírez Salazar believes that making specialists available at TierraFest workshops shows that there are a lot of people working to find solutions and make the world a better place.
He added that combining all this knowledge with art and cultural expressions challenges the myth that science is a rigid thing. On the contrary, he believes it’s a path to liberation.
As an example, he highlighted TierraFest’s annual Drag Queen Runway. “You might think it has nothing to do with science, but it does, because there are LGBT+ people who are doing science,” he said.
For Ramírez Salazar, events like TierraFest are also important because they can be a catalyst for children’s vocations. Victoria, for example, enjoys being in contact with nature and figures being a wildlife biologist might suit her.
—Roberto González (@ggonzalitos), Science Writer