Art to Inspire and Educate in New York City

By: Nicole Yeh

In late September, most people were surprised by a new timeframe in Manhattan’s Union Square:  7:103:15:40:07 . While this doesn’t seem imminent, these numbers are a ticking time bomb representing how much time the world has left to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible. 

According to the New York Times, from left to right, the numbers represent the years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds until that deadline. The artists behind the Climate Clock are Andrew Boyd and Gan Golan, both of which had also previously created a handheld climate clock for youth climate activist Greta Thunberg. 

Golan and Boyd claimed that the purpose of presenting a sizable clock was to exacerbate the importance of the issue. The Climate Clock specifically represents the Earth’s carbon budget rate- meaning that the time presented on the Climate Clock is the amount of time left until Earth’s carbon budget is depleted. In a Washington Post article, total depletion would mean more flooding, wildfires, droughts, and displacement if action isn’t taken to prevent warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

Although the Climate Clock in New York’s Union Square was only displayed until September 27th, it may be a permanent feature in the future. Nonetheless, the Climate Clock left a provoking reality for most Americans- that we have to take action to combat climate change soon before there is no turning back.

While the Climate Clock served as a creative channel to convey the amount of time left before our doomsday, it also represents the fact that we still have time to take action. Perhaps every city, and even schools, should have a version of the Climate Clock to remind each person of the consequences of the impending deadline. We saw many resposts of the Climate Clock on Instagram stories, but what action will we actually take before we reach a point of no return?