if we do nothing

Having ploughed through several scientific papers I’ve made my decisions with respect to the data I want to use for a preliminary sonification model or, if you prefer, the narrative. Though ti’s obvious now, I hadn’t realised that CO2 data from ice core samples goes back literally to the year dot, and then even earlier. There’s been some interesting visual work with these large cloudy, frozen cylindrical time machines which might be worth investigating for future collaborations.

Anyway I’ve decided work with a timescale from 1880 to 2050. The earlier date is as pre-industrial as I can go and is also when records start for glacier monitoring. The choice of 2050 is based on the fact that if we don’t sort ourselves out by then the game’s over.

The data for the Aletsch glacier in Switzerland shows an unimaginable ice volume loss during the period in question. The scientists look at the forward projections with a number of highly sophisticated models so I trust these projections to be as accurate as possible.

Projecting forward from 2017 to 2050 for CO2 levels we can follow a number of scenarios to estimate the data. The most pessimistic (or is it realistic?) if we do nothing, or as they say in the community, ‘no action’, shows levels of CO2 so great that devastating tipping points will occur across several climatic areas. Sorry to be so negative folks, but we all need to take a serious look at our behaviour with respect to fossil fuel consumption, and we need to lobby politicians so that the issue becomes more important than an footnote to a party manifesto in the hope of sweeping up ‘the green vote’.

But all this lies at the heart of my project. Having become frustrated at the torrent of data hitting my screens every day I took some comfort from Naomi Klein’s book ‘This Changes Everything’ in which she decided to respond to her sense of frustration, within her means, by researching, writing and delivering a positive response to a range of climate change matters. Although I’m presenting some fairly dire scenarios my hope is that a sonic representation will invite a deeper more transformational reflection, and that I’ll be able to wrap the outcomes of this project, at the production stage when I exhibit the eventual sound installations, in  socially-engaged events where the work functions as a catalyst or forum around which people will gather to share values and discuss personal and collective responses to climate change.

Science is not all about facts. This much I knew before meeting my partners from the scientific community. But now, having met with my new colleagues I’m much more aware of the many affinities between research-based contemporary sonic art and scientific practice.

I think that one of the best uses of arts money would be to have  resident artists in as many University science departments as possible, beginning of course with myself. I say his having just gained an appreciation of the work carried out by the Cryosphere and Climate Change Group, based in the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen. I can only imagine the joys of working as a resident artist, in any medium, with people who recreate or even reimagine ancient environmental histories through investigations into palaeo-environmental reconstruction, palaeoclimate and palaeoglaciology, glacial tectonics and long-term landscape evolution.

The purpose of my visit was to meet at last with my scientific partners and to establish which kinds of sonification models might be feasible, which of my ideas would honour the science in other words. Everything depends on the quality of the historical monitoring records and it turns out that records are in very good shape for some climatological phenomena, particularly in England. I can for example map rising tones to CO2 accumulations over time, starting pre-industrially, and because of this can present a reasonable prediction looking forward to 2050 or 2100. I should say that ‘looking forward’ isn’t the best choice of words – I’m constantly shocked by the fact that unless we clean up our act none of these predictions look good for our children and grandchildren.

Much harder is establishing a good set of historical records for diminishing ice sheet mass or area, which was my original idea. After much headscratching someone remembered that the Aletsch Glacier in the Bernese Alps has been historically very well monitored and provides excellent data. According to one online source the glacier is experiencing dramatic ablation, shrinking by up to 50 metres in length each year and retreating significantly at the edges. Again my enthusiasm around this research is tempered by an unease at making creative work around such disturbing environmental trends.

What I’ve also learned is the fact that various cycles, what we might call unforced or seasonal cycles, occur within the rise and fall of these anthropogenically forced climate change phenomena. With global temperature for example, plotted on an x/y axis, we find a rising trend over time, with a drastic increase in rate over the last two decades. But within this there are small sine waves, oscillations analogous to the seasonal variations. Falling glacier mass or other phenomena will have show periodic or quasi-periodic oscillations. Mapped to frequency these oscillations within a rising or falling trend will offer the listener a much more interesting sonic model, some noise in an otherwise smooth signal.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, I received a very warm response as well as excellent advice with respect to making the work accessible, how we might add value to an exhibition by presenting the work as a catalyst or forum that invites people to share values around climate change issues.

My first move has been to arrange a meeting with the Cryosphere Research Group in Aberdeen in April. I need to understand how  climate change data is sourced and interpreted, how the data can be scaled to represent various timelines and how we might establish the scope and depth of the project. After that I move to developing a sonification model, ‘plugging’the data into the sound synthesis programme.

Alongside this I’m developing an awareness campaign around the project. So far I’ve begun corresponding with some of the many agencies, individuals and organisations involved with climate change action, from the creative, business, academic and civic sectors. From the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who publicise creative responses to climate change, to Creative Carbon Scotland to Edinburgh’s DataLab, not to mention the Scottish Government in the light of the First Minister’s recent visit to California to sign climate change agreements. So far all seem to be inclusive, welcoming and eager to discuss creative responses.