Humanizing the Climate Crisis: Finding the Balance Between Data and Humanity

Inviting audiences cinematically, Bonny McClain brings a series of interconnected issues — including deforestation, pollution, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss — representing a detachment from ecological systems, exacerbated by industrial practices that allow environmental harm to be displaced geographically and socially.

Quantitative storytelling portrays an intricate dance between objective reality — the meteor showers that streak indifferently across the sky — and the subjective whispers that echo in each mind to reveal a profound truth. Yet this reliance on stories, while fundamentally human, carries with it an insidious risk. When the artful construction of words outshines the raw power of fact, we begin to lose our grip on the very ground beneath our feet. We become ghosts in our own lives, detached from the ecological truths that demand our attention.

We are both storytellers and stewards, yet we stand on the edge of a precipice, watching the narrative shift — questioning not just our place in this world, but our responsibility to the stories yet to be told. In this moment, as the threads of connection fray and knot, Bonny implores us to remember, to reconnect, to reclaim the grounded truths that have long been overshadowed by the dissonance of our modern storytelling.