ABSTRACT
Climate science is the mode of knowledge most frequently advocated to be capable of disclosing ‘the’ truth of ‘the’ reality of climate change. This knowledge is argued to be objective and therefore dispassionate. However, many climate scientists are deeply distressed by the findings of their work. This chapter focuses on the practice of witnessing climate change. Witnessing climate change is an affective labour of attuning to material worlds and validating their reality, no matter how distressing they may be. It explores how engaging other-than-scientific knowledges can enable people to witness multiple climate realities, such as everyday lived experiences, daydreams and nightmares, and animated understandings of climate. Witnessing multiple climate realities enrols people in multiple ways of relating to climate change and allows a fuller appreciation of the complex ways that climate infiltrates and affects human lives. Witnessing other people’s experiences of climate change also validates them as legitimate climate knowers. Witnessing climate change therefore changes the kinds of relationships that we are part of, and thus, who we are.
