Connecting to the Climate Crisis

A mechanical installation designed to bridge the gap between the abstract nature of climate change and the tangible experience of everyday life.

Designed by Jem Mitchell

Post-industrial human activity has drastically altered climactic conditions across the planet, with disastrous consequences that continue to worsen and multiply.

Despite concrete evidence of this climate crisis, we continue to accelerate towards planetary destruction. Although it is plain to see the damage we are causing as a species, it is far more difficult to connect this to our own lives and actions.

Conventional climate campaigns fail to make this any easier, citing abstract statistics too large or small to be understood meaningfully.

The outcome of this project is a mechanical installation that responds to this issue by communicating the crisis at a human scale, focusing on a more suitable statistic: 1.15 metres/day.

This is the global average velocity of climate change, which means that in the northern hemisphere we have to move 1.15 metres north every day to experience the same temperature as yesterday.

The installation is formed by a series of artefacts designed to move at this speed. Relentless, disruptive, and slow enough to pretend that nothing is happening.

Designed by

Jem Mitchell | MEng