Losing Words, Losing Worlds

If you can predict it, you can name it.

Across India, hundreds of words in local dialects capture the specific rhythms of regional climate: a short drizzle versus a multi-day downpour, particular cloud formations, the first signs of a temperature spike. This talk looks at what it means when those words start to disappear, and what that loss says about our relationship to the natural world.

India’s climate discourse is largely conducted in English, top-down, and removed from the lived reality of those most affected by the crisis. As weather patterns grow more erratic, the environmental…