Climate Truth Crisis is an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership Project that brings together students and staff from seven art and design academies in the respective cities of The Hague, Reykjavík, Barcelona, London, Vilnius, Tallin and Sarajevo. This educational programme investigates the implications of climate change scepticism on democracy and public trust.

In particular, the aim is to develop practices that empower young designers to evaluate climate-related news and visualise the spread of disinformation. Information design, video and visual storytelling are deployed to engage publics in the impact of processes like industry lobbying, greenwashing, conspiracy theories and social media bots. The driving research question is: If democracy relies on assuming voters are well informed enough to make political choices, how might communication engage people in serious issues and help them sort news from fake news to effectively impact sustainable change?

Together with regional, environmentally engaged NGOs and scientists, Climate Truth Crisis provides a wide range of educational formats, along with teacher trainings, guest lectures and student workshops. The expected project results will include an online repository of project proceedings and resources, a glossary of relevant terms and topics on the spread of disinformation in relation to climate change, a research publication with project findings, and a series of podcast episodes on the themes, discussions and insights emerging from the project. Ultimately Climate Truth Crisis aims to create new knowledge through a cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural and cross-academic engagement.

The project is is funded by the Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership Project.