May
4
The climax is now
Filed Under Green Events
How could a view of such beauty invoke such sadness?
A solitary glacier sits stretching out of the arctic water. It leans like a tree as someone is getting ready to shout timber!
The water slurps around it like beavers nibbling away at the inevitable. It slowly takes on an hourglass figure.
The sound of the water moving in gentle ripples echoes in the darkened room. Every now and then a bird flies into view.
I am trying to imagine I am there, the wind chilling my face, looking out at this, taking in the magnitude of the beauty and the consequences.
The shimmering arctic waters act like a mirror for the sun, intensifying the sun’s rays and increasing the speed at which the water’s temperature is rising, and the final glacier will melt.
It is a breathtaking image, but one of immense sadness.
An older woman enters the room to watch it with me. “How long have you been waiting for it to fall?” she asks, laughing.
I imagine the polar bears swimming long distances in search of food and rest, until their exhaustion overtakes them and they drown.
Seeing it fall isn’t the climax. The climax is now, watching it stand.
Just as I write these words there is a thunderous crack, and the glacier falls with a terrific sound, its pieces disappearing below the surface of the water.
And I had been convinced I was watching a looped video.
This is but one of the contributions of many artists from around the world that comprises an exhibit of the effects of global warming. The exhibit, Melting Ice: A Hot Topic, is now at the Field Museum.
David Bucland—United Kingdom
End of Ice, 2005
Video, 40 minutes
The artist writes: “Filming the demise of an iceberg is both exhilarating and sad. As we watch it sink lower and lower, and finally collapse, our reflections turn towards the implication of the loss of ice.”