Climate Stripes Bandana - gifts for runners
6th December, 2018
You can't move for warnings about the state
of the environment and man's devastating effect on it these days. The
science can be complicated and presented in an overly techincal way,
making it less accessible.
Professor Ed Hawkins,
climate scientist for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science,
thought the same and came up with a strikingly clear illustration of the
changes we are causing to our World. He created visualisations of
temperature for various locations around the World using simple stripes,
one stripe per year, with the colour of the stripe representing the
temperature. Blue stripes are relatively cool; red stripes warm.
The
effect, especially for the Global version, which I have used, is
arresting. Not only is the trend to a warmer World clearly apparent but
also the rapid acceleration that has taken place in recent years, with
the past four being the warmest on record.
Ed's
design has been featured on a number of things (even the paint job of a
car which I *WANT*) but as a runner I thought it would work really well
for a bandana. Apprently b*ff is trademarked, and frankly a silly
word, so bandana it is. Or multifunction headwear. Or snood. Just as
silly as b*ff really.
So the first proper product over on my UltraBritain service, with Ed's kind permission, is this:
Climate Stripe Bandana
The wonderful Ally (https://stonelockphotography.co.uk/)
is responsible for the brilliant product shots (also available for
wedding photo shoots, if you're looking for a professional!).
I wanted something interesting and climate-related to feature on the enclosure and Map Maker and Artist Owen Delaney (https://owendelaney.art/)
produced for me a hand-drawn illustration of the impact of rising sea
levels on Europe's coastline. In many ways, just as striking as the
Stripes with many of the World's major cities in the front line.
I hope it might provoke some discussion and in a tiny way raise awareness.
There are more details and close-up images on UltraBritain
