The Climate Clock in Manhattan (Photo: climateclock.world)
A giant digital electronic clock in New York is counting down the time until the climate crisis becomes irreversible.
The art installation used to count the time to and from midnight. Now it has been reconfigured by two artists – Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd – to its new ecological function.
The Climate Clock, which is a staggering 62-foot-wide, faces Union Square in Manhattan. It will be displayed there until the end of climate week on September 27. The artists then plan to move the installation to another location.
Countdown to climate crisis
According to the artists, they used calculations by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin to set the clock.
The numbers on the display represent the years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the time we have to start reversing global warming runs out.
‘The world is counting on us’
Gan Golan told the New York Times: “This is our way to shout that number from the rooftops. The world is literally counting on us.”
Andrew Boyd added: “This is arguably the most important number in the world. And a monument is often how a society shows what’s important, what it elevates, what is at center stage.”
‘Perilously close to the brink’
A statement by Stephen Ross, chairman of Related Companies, the developer that owns One Union Square South, said: “The Climate Clock will remind the world every day just how perilously close we are to the brink.
“This initiative will encourage everybody to join us in fighting for the future of our planet.”
