| Is it okay to present this doomsday message? |
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The message with the seven meter line can be criticized for being doomsday prophetic, while the risk of a total meltdown of the inland ice lies far off in the future. However, the argument is that it is necessary to focus on how wrong it can go – even though it is in the long term. The meltdown is going much faster than earlier thought, almost every month new and higher numbers come out for the expected water risings within this century. You have to be aware of the fact that it isn’t a scientific project that is in question, but an artistic interpretation of the environmental problem. An interpretation which is intended for mass communication and for creating an up-to-the-minute account of what the future could look like. A kind of poem in the public space, where it isn’t the concrete word, but the coherence and atmosphere that the whole poem creates that is interesting. It isn’t enough just to change to energy-saving bulbs! A change in attitude and consumption is needed, that reaches far, far further. It is quite simply a necessity to cut the issue out in water for the message to be received. Anyway, a seven meters water rise is relatively moderate. If the ice on Antarctica also melted, the rise would be 80 meters. Many people aren’t aware of the part humans play in the climatic changes. A current poll shows that four in ten Danes don’t believe in a man-made greenhouse effect. A poll from the opinion-research institute Synovate Vilstrup shows that 62 % think that climate changes primarily is man-made. The remaining 38 % explains the climate changes as natural fluctuations or answer “don’t know”. (Source: the newspaper Politiken, 30 November 2008). |








