| During the COP15 climate summit meeting a physical and virtual installation of time was performed at a linear scale of 1 mm per 100 years.
The “track of time” was carefully anchored geographically so that highlights in time history coincided with landmarks of historical and cultural significance to both tourists and the local Danish population; with Big Bang at the site of early royal settlements from the Viking age (13.7 billion years ~ 137 km from now), Earth origin at Kronborg in Elsinore (4.6 bil. Years ~ 46 km), and fish go on land at The Little Mermaid (390 mil. Years ~ 3900 m). The venue of the COP15 meeting coincided with the position of severe global warming, driven by the steady solar constant increase, to be expected 600 million years into the future.
Nested in this grand track of time were the Quaternary ice-ages (2.6 mil. years ~ 26 m), human origin as species (100,000 years ~ 1 m), human history (< 10,000 years ~ 100 mm), personal life and the scope of political consequences of voting action (100 years ~ 1 mm).
This installation of time involved several media. Highlights in time history and future were installed as a kml-file so that the convenient user interface of Google Earth could be utilized to provide both overview of time and understanding of details and proportions events antropo-geo-cosmo-history. Each Google Earth marker-balloon gave short explanations and linked to “on location” video-narratives. A classical printed text-folder was prepared as a tour guide for those who wanted to actually walk the Phanerozoic (~5 km). Credit-card-shaped graphs of temperature, CO2 and sealevel development and scenarios were prepared to scale for the period 4000 BP to 1000 years into the future. Along the time line from “Fish on land” to the present 3900 chalk marks were placed on the street surface, one for every metre = time span of Man as a species so far.
A “NowGate” marking the present was implemented physically as a door frame, where citizens could meet and discuss time and political and technological milestones in climate/biodiversity remediation and energy system developments. Meanwhile, children and young of mind tested who could take the longest jump into the future.
This case study in teaching of scientific time confirmed that 1 mm per 100 years is an adequate linear scale when conveying a joint comprehension of even the longest scientific time scales together with time scales of personal/ethical/political choice.
Virtual media of the installation are available for download at www.1mmper100y.dk. |