The climate crisis has inspired youth-led activism across the world and young people now lead global campaigns and political protest on climate justice. However, aside from news media coverage of youth activism and the attendant focus on young people’s hand-drawn protest placards, relatively little is known about young people’s views on the actions needed to respond to the climate crisis or how they imagine environmentally-sustainable futures. This visual essay addresses that lacuna by exploring young people’s ideas about local climate actions. The images selected for consideration were created using Minecraft, the 3D block-building visualisation game, at workshops held in Ireland. Young people and their families were invited to create environmentally-sustainable futures at Minecraft workshops.

Exploring these 3D designs as images, the essay documents young people’s visual representations of desirable climate actions and reflects on these Minecraft images to shed light on how young people envision alternative climate futures. These collective visions, or climate imaginaries, are powerful indicators of what young people imagine is possible in the future. In doing so, they present an alternative to the mainstream news and entertainment media preoccupation with dystopian constructions of the climate crisis. They also highlight the power of Minecraft as a visual medium to open up new ways of seeing nature and of envisioning nature-society relations.

The selected images were also exhibited as part of the CLIMATE LOOK Lab 2022 held at the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. The gallery invited researchers, community groups and artists to use the gallery as a lab space to engage visitors with our changing environment and to explore how images can change the visual narrative on climate change.

气候危机激发了世界各地青年领导的激进主义运动，现在年轻人领导全球运动和关于气候正义的政治抗议。然而，除了新闻媒体对青年激进主义的报道以及随之而来的对年轻人手绘抗议标语的关注之外，对于年轻人对应对气候危机所需行动的看法或他们如何想象环境可持续发展的未来，人们知之甚少。这篇视觉文章通过探索年轻人对当地气候行动的想法来解决这个漏洞。选择考虑的图像是在爱尔兰举办的研讨会上使用 3D 积木可视化游戏 Minecraft 创建的。年轻人及其家人受邀在 Minecraft 研讨会上创造环境可持续的未来。

通过将这些 3D 设计作为图像进行探索，这篇文章记录了年轻人对理想气候行动的视觉表现，并反思了这些 Minecraft 图像，以阐明年轻人如何设想替代气候未来。这些集体愿景或气候想象是年轻人想象未来可能的有力指标。在这样做的过程中，他们提供了一种替代主流新闻和娱乐媒体对气候危机的反乌托邦结构的关注。它们还强调了 Minecraft 作为一种视觉媒介的力量，它开辟了观察自然和设想自然-社会关系的新方式。

选定的图像还作为在利物浦 Open Eye 画廊举行的 2022 年气候观察实验室的一部分展出。画廊邀请研究人员、社区团体和艺术家将画廊用作实验室空间，让参观者了解我们不断变化的环境，并探索图像如何改变关于气候变化的视觉叙事。