The Visible Carbon Project: 1 Can

Despite the fact that awareness of climate change is growing, we are struggling to bring about the changes in our behaviour that will stop things getting worse. So why is it that we are still creating problems rather than solutions?

I feel that part of the reason for this is that in our modern world it is very easy to pollute but not so easy to see or understand the effects. Not only is Carbon Dioxide (the main cause of climate change) a clear odorless gas invisible to the human eye, but the effects of it (melting glaciers, species extinction, drought, etc.) are often felt elsewhere in the world. It is difficult to connect the 'invisible', distant and abstract problems of the planet to our own domestic actions. This 'invisibility' is a key part of the problem, in that we cannot actually see what the negative impact of our actions are doing. Our personal contribution to the production of greenhouse gases is hard to picture, hard to understand, and therefore difficult to act upon.

In this piece the 1.66m diameter sphere of recycled drinks cans, shows the volume (2.43m³) of CO² gas that is added to the atmosphere every time we throw away one aluminium can. Whilst often nowadays our own carbon footprint is referred to in terms of weight, I feel it is more helpful to our understanding of its production if it is expressed as volume because volume is visible, it can be seen.

My intention with this sculpture is to make 'the invisible', visible, help form a better understanding of how our actions impact the planet, and encourage us to create solutions out of our problems. To bring this to the example of one aluminium can - should we decide to recycle, rather than discard our can, we are deciding to keep 2.43m³ (cubic metres) of CO² gas from being added to the atmosphere.