Critical Mass w Blue Tape: Mark Your Neighborhood High Water Mark:Global Warming & Katrina

Snorkel the future shoreline!

We're still at it (blue taping) here in SF. Hugh D'Andrade marked a storefront banner at seven meters in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. I then wrote "FUTURE SEA LEVEL" on the tape and got the eye-popping reaction we'd hoped for from a customer heading into the store. It's oversimplifying, sure, but it's good to get folks a talkin'.

I've started this blog to swap stories about one fun activity that each of us can do where we live. All you need is some blue tape. Or string. Or paint.

Grab your tape. With your free hand, find your location using Google Earth. After all the fancy zooming effects settle to a stop, it'll display the elevation above sea level at the bottom of the window. Move the cursor over the place you are interested in. If it's "elev 18 ft" at the intersection, go out onto the street and mark an object at that intersection with a blue line five feet up. (18 ft + 5 ft = 23 ft which is seven meters above sea level.) Then, after you've marked your house or utility pole Up To Here, let me know about it. Send a photo for me to post!

Send some stories to Up To Here describing how people react. And if your efforts include a sign or sticker explaining this "installation" for passersby, maybe send an image of that.

Oh wait! Before we get all sticky and intimate with the blue tape, let's dispense (with) some confusion!

Hey look! It's Q&A!

What about markings at other elevations?
Sure, mark at any elevation you like. These installations are symbolic. They symbolize the challenges ahead, as we experience (and desperately try to avoid) the accelerated changes that make our planetary moment exciting.

I picked seven meters because of widely accepted calculations that if all of Greenland's ice slid or melted into the sea, it would raise worldwide sea levels seven meters. Greenland is already melting faster than new snow accumulates and now it seems that melt water flowing under the very thick ice may lubricate its slide into the sea.

Climate is a brain-twiddlingly complex system, far beyond the understanding of the most observant and diligent scientific geniuses. It's hard to know what will happen, and to the slight extent that we can predict what, we don't know when. So pick a line and tape it! Or put a blue ribbon-magnet on your— Oh no, never mind.

posted by Uncle Pea @ 1:25 PM 13 comments links to this post