‘Meltdown Flags’ Use White Space To Reflect Shrinking Glaciers In Countries
Image via Meltdown Flags
Meltdown Flags is a digital project that envisions the disastrous effects of the ongoing climate crisis.
Created by the digital design studio Moby Digg, the open-source project was initiated by environmental company METER and communications agency Serviceplan to replicate the data on glaciers in the form of flags.
The team obtained data from sources including METER, UNESCO, NASA, World Glacier Monitoring System (WGMS), United Nations Environmental Programme, the University of Zurich, and the University of Innsbruck.
Countries with glaciers like the US, Argentina, Canada, France and India, see a significant reduction of white on their flag designs, which serves as a visual representation of the shrinking ice masses. Canada’s middle section had a full width in 1995, but is now condensed, with a projected decrease in 2050. The white stripes in the US flag have also been reduced to a fraction of their usual height.
The flags also double as statistics on the percentage of glacier retreat from 1995 to 2050, the nation’s population, landmass, and emissions. Key dates are the years of 1995, 2020 and 2050—respectively referring to the year of the first UN Climate Change Conference in Berlin, the present-day status, and the goal year set in the Paris Agreement to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C.
The project outlines the severity of global warming—one million people will expectedly lose their homes for every centimeter of sea-level rise.
Glaciers are a vital life source, and if they melt completely, humanity will lose 69 percent of its drinking water.
To follow the global awareness movement, head to the project’s website.
[via It’s Nice That, cover image via Meltdown Flags]
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