Earlier this week a 19-metre wide electronic clock lit up on the side of a building facing Manhattan’s Union Square. The 15-digit display is a public art project called Metronome and is a gloomy reminder that we have roughly seven years before our planet reach its carbon emission deadline.
So what exactly is the carbon emission deadline? The Mercator Research Institute of Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) has done the math for our carbon budget. Our greenhouse gas emissions need to be altered so that we still have a 67% chance of keeping the world under 1,5 degrees Celsius of warming. In around seven years, it will be too late if we don’t change our unsustainable way of living.
Creators of the ”Climate Clock” are Andrew Boys and Gan Golan, who told The New York Times about the work.
— We felt a monumental challenge like this needed something monumental in scale—a monument. And we also wanted it to be in public, something that you couldn’t push out of sight, out of mind. We wanted something that would bring public attention to the climate on a daily basis, so it’s something that we can’t ignore.
