Artists have created visualisations of the impact of the climate crisis on some of the world’s most recognisable landscapes, in a project to highlight the environmental effects of tech consumption.
So, take a piccie, run it through an AI as if it’s 30 metres underwater. Done.
How many times has this been done already?
Mark Maslin, a professor of earth system science at University College London, used climate modelling to examine the low-end and top-end damage at each location. His findings were interpreted by a group of artists for the show at the Last Shot Gallery by Back Market. The artistic works are not intended to be taken as literal predictions of what will happen in these locations, but to raise awareness of the threat posed by climate breakdown.
Ah, so it’s not, in fact, art at all. It’s propaganda.
Maslin said the environmental impact of tech consumption was estimated to account for 6% of the human-driven climate crisis; double that of the aviation industry.
And it’s all Elon’s fault. That’s the new bit, eh?
If you are ever unfortunate enough to listen to Night Tracks on Radio3 after 10pm, you will often be assailed by music inspired by Climate Change and its effects on slugs in Patagonia. Dreary and unimaginitive it is too.
Artists generally are people who are ripe for propaganda. Deep thought on a subject is usually beyond them. I meet quite a few artists frequently and even the most basic concepts of economics or politics or technology are a mystery to them.
See also Spud and his sudden embrace of sub atomic physics.
Artists can also be fairly desperate for inspiration.
There was a song released a couple of years back. If you don’t know the lyrics, you’d think the singer was singing about something really exciting.
And then you look up the lyrics and find he’s singing about sitting in his bedroom back in his high school years, thinking up this song’s lyrics…
<i>I meet quite a few artists frequently and even the most basic concepts of economics or politics or technology are a mystery to them.</i>
From my own experience I would add scientifically illiterate and logically challenged (in so far as 2+2 = no idea). Invariably left wing. Now in my dotage, I count myself as artistically inclined but with a scientific, military aviation questioning upbringing, I do wonder how people can be so stupid.
“used climate modelling”. So bollocks then.
“All models are wrong. Some are useful” George Box.
“Artists”, eh? Are there any actual artists left, I wonder?
You want an example of the effect of climate change on the environment, go to Constanta in Romania. It’s a city on an almost landlocked sea that drains into another almost landlocked sea. So you couldn’t get anywhere more sensitive to climate change. The sea level depends on the balance of precipitation & evaporation across much of eastern & southern Europe & great swathes of Asia & Africa & the flows through the Bosporus & Straits of Gibraltar. And the sea level’s exactly the same as it was in Roman times. And no one’s expecting it to be any different.
Incidentally, I can recommend Constanta. I wouldn’t mind living there except its winters are a bit colder than here. But great if you like skiing.
Makes me want to run out and buy some Maui shoreline, since the prices have obviously plummeted in response to the GW threat. I can use it until it disappears in five or six years.
Right?