Islands, climate change, and young people's artistic explorations of resilient place

This world is one of islands – forty-three island nation-states, many hundreds of island jurisdictions, many thousands of smaller islets and rocky outcrops. In a warming world, island topography matters – here are lands completely surrounded by water and smaller than continents. In a warming world, the topological relations of islands also matter. In their apparent isolation islands function as refugia for unique species. Even so, isolation does not preclude connection, and in their connectedness islands also give effect to splendid variability – take Darwin’s finches, for example.

Not surprisingly then, islands are often encapsulated by the (contested) idea of vulnerability – for example, in terms of dependence on limited natural resources or disadvantaged terms of trade and reliance on outside authorities. On islands scale becomes manageable and their relative smallness of size makes them ideal sites in which to test the local effects of global change. That such testing has too often reduced islanders to the status of lab rats or canaries is a matter on which I do not dwell but feel compelled to note in passing.