According to the New York Times, the Earth has a deadline. And the Climate Clock in New York City is keeping time.
Metronome’s digital clock in Union Square has been reprogrammed. Now, instead of measuring 24-hour cycles, it is measuring what two artists, Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd, present as a critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible. According to the clock, there is a little more than 7 years.
“This is arguably the most important number in the world,” Boyd said. “And a monument is often how a society shows what’s important, what it elevates, what is at center stage.”
The artists’ goal of creating a large-scale clock was influenced in part by the Doomsday Clock, maintained online by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and by the National Debt Clock near Bryant Park in Manhattan. The artists said it was based on calculations by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin.
Golan and Boyd decided that it would have the most impact if it were displayed in a conspicuous public space and presented like a statue or an artwork. It will be on display until Sept. 27, but the creators say their aim is to arrange for the clock to be permanently displayed, there or elsewhere.
Source: Instagram New York Times