CO2 CUBES

While delegates from 200 nations meet in Copenhagen to defuse the time bomb of catastrophic climate change, a multimedia art installation floats on a barge near the Tycho Brahe Planetarium to remind participants and onlookers of how much risk is in the air. CO2 CUBES: Visualize a Tonne of Change is a structure 27 feet on each side that represents 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide, the amount produced by the average citizen of an industrialized country in a month, and half the total of the typical American. Created from 12 shipping containers to form the equivalent of a three-story building, the installation is clad on two sides with architectural mesh fabric that serves as a screen for video displays related to the impact and solutions for climate change. This information can be accessed by the world at large via YouTube.

“The cube as a media delivery system contains 36 channels of separate video mirror screens that are dynamically reconfigurable,” reports the website of Millennium ART, which produced the installation in partnership with the United Nations Department of Public Information, Google and YouTube. “The streams of media are made up of two-way live video conferencing, producing videos, real-time data and a practically endless supply of interactive and digital information sources regarding the science, solutions and dire consequences of continued CO2 emissions, if policy changes are not made.”