The National Endowment for the Humanities will award a $150,000 grant to community organizations to catalogue peoples’ thoughts on climate change, according to a spending announcement.
The grant is part of the Climate and Community Resilience Program, whose mission is to mitigate climate change’s effects, safeguard cultural resources, and foster cultural resilience through documenting cultural heritage and community resilience.
According to the video presentation, potential project ideas include an oral history collection of reflections from firefighters and other first responders fighting wildfires and other natural disasters, documenting memories of indigenous elders during climate crises like droughts, and documenting climate change’s effects on agriculture. Projects are expected to last two years.
Grant money can also be used to document people’s feelings about Covid-19, according to the presentation, including the experience of doctors and nurses, and “the documenting of everyday community experiences” during the pandemic.
The notice stipulates that disadvantaged communities will be given special preference to receive these funds, and encourages applicants to adhere to inclusive methodologies.
This grant suggests the need to record peoples’ feelings on climate change, despite there being no lack of journalistic projects, social media posts, and academic endeavors devoted to the topic. Those records could be passed on to future generations without spending $150,000.
Government could be using these funds to fight climate change by funding renewable energy sources. Instead, the government is spending the money to document how bad climate change is and how worried people are about it—something that has been done ad nauseum.
This grant doesn’t respond to any needs in a community or address gaps in private funding. Instead, it uses taxpayer money to create a catalogue of knowledge that already exists.
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