100 Years of Climate Change

An audio walk with Yara El-Sherbini.

Taking you on a night-time journey, a hypnotic induction will open up awareness with the environment; both the built and the self.

Globally climate change is anticipated to have catastrophic local impacts, but is described in global terms, which is difficult to grasp as meaningful to our everyday lives. This audio walk enables people to consider our environments so that we can better understand the magnitude of change.

100 Years of Climate Change was one of three large-scale, participatory mass observation projects on climate and biodiversity developed for Futuresonic 2009 by FutureEverything and ImaginationLancaster in collaboration with the Met Office and Natural History Museum.

Global & Local Climate Change

Over the next 100 years, the global climate will warm by at least two degrees. Two degrees or above is also the difference in temperature between rural areas and cities (aka urban heat islands). In Manchester there are microclimates where up to six degrees temperature difference can be experienced over just 100 metres, especially late at night and in the very early morning. By walking between these microclimates you are able to experience what this change in temperature feels like. You may have experienced this walking between a park and built up area, for example. This makes tangible, at a local level, a change happening globally over a timescale we cannot easily comprehend.

Globally climate change is anticipated to have catastrophic local impacts, but is described in terms of global level of temperature change which is difficult to grasp as meaningful to our everyday lives. This project open up awareness of temperature change, enabling you to be more attuned to these temperature gradients. The aim is to give us a small chill now, so that we can better understand the magnitude of the changes people are likely to face at a local level in the next 100 years.

Credits

Lead partners: Futuresonic 2009, Natural History Museum, Lancaster University.
Supported by: ImaginationLancaster, FutureEverything, Met Office, Natural History Museum, OPAL (Open Air Laboratories network) , Manchester City Council, Be Proud Love Manchester, Arts Council England, Lancaster Environment Centre, CESAGen, Institute for Advanced Studies, Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University. OPAL is Funded by The National Lottery through Big Lottery Fund.