Artefacts of a
Burning World

Opinionated collection of 38 articles, films, podcasts and other artefacts related to the climate crisis.

You are viewing 21–31 of 38 posts.
Shortfilm

The shortfilm (2022, 25′) documents walrus haulouts – large gatherings of walruses seeking refuge on shore when their search for remaining sea ice forces them to swim much farther and farther distances.

The marine biologist Maxim Chakilev records these dramatic gatherings in Cape Serdtse-Kamen, Russia. Living together with the scientist in a small, wooden hut surrounded by thousands of walruses, the film team captures the intense atmosphere and suffering of the animals. And the helplessness of Maxim.

The film is produced by The New Yorker (which provide valuable background information on the film), is shortlisted for the 2023 Oscars and premiered 2022 at Berlinale. It is currently disabled on YouTube, which might be due to the Oscar nomination, but is still available at Yahoo.

Study

A team of scientists from the University of Würzburg published an updated estimates of weight of biomass on earth by category. Wild land mammals have a total biomass of 22 million tons. Marine mammals account for 40 million tons. These numbers are far overshadowed by 390 million tons of human biomass and 630 million tons of livestock and other hangers-on such as urban rats.

Reading the list of numbers in the article makes me wish for a visualisation, that would make the relations and categories much clearer.

But at the very end, the article reveals another insight. But this time, it’s about the thinking of one of the involved scientists, which could be read as representative of Western thinking about nature in general: “We can only conserve what we understand, and we can only truly understand what we can quantify.”

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It might not look like much but it's probably the most defining number of our time, one that will shape this century and many beyond it. It is the amount, in parts-per-million, of carbon dioxide in our planet's atmosphere. This project by Julian Oliver and Gardan Savičić displays this number on your smartphone.

Article
„Versetzen Sie sich für einen Moment in die nähere Zukunft, sagen wir ins Jahr 2141. Was passiert? Sie schauen zurück, nerven sich über die vergangene Zeit, lachen vielleicht. Sie blicken auf Ihre eigene Gegenwart, so wie Sie heute in einem Museum auf die Viktorianer oder Wilhelm Tell zurückschauen würden. Man fühlt sich dabei überlegen, weil man lebt und die anderen tot sind; weil man Dinge weiss, die die anderen damals nicht wussten; weil sie Fehler begingen, die in Zukunft offensichtlich sind. Wenn Sie dann wieder aus dem Jahr 2141 in die Gegenwart zurück­kehren, dann werden Sie verstehen, dass auch Sie Teil eines historischen Prozesses sind, an den man sich später erinnern wird und den Sie mit Ihren Handlungen beeinflussen.“
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Video

The warming stripes by Ed Hawkins achieved what only few images and even less data visualisations did: they became an icon. Due to their simplicity they managed the gap between science and pop culture. They communicate their message without any explicit legend and reached a point where the pure display conveys a political message. And when the Reading FC football club wore the warming stripes on their jersey, they might have triggered the first climate change conversation during live commentary of a football match.