Climate + Emoji = ???
©apple
Emojispeak totally count as a language on its own nowadays, but until recently, the language made it very hard to talk about climate change and environmental issues. Thankfully, a team of artists in New York have a suitably millennial/gen-z solution to the problem: Climoji, an evocative set of climate change-themed emoji. Now let’s take a look in this edition of Greenspiration!
CLIMATE + EMOJI
=CLIMOJI
©climoji
Starving polar bears, melting sea ice, dead trees in wildfires, fish swallowing a plastic bottle, a black and white rainbow shrouded in haze…the icons depict some of the most important issues of our time: global warming and environmental destruction. This set of emoji combining climate issues with everyday emoji icons is called climoji and aims to raise public awareness to global climate change and environmental issues.
Swipe to view more!
©climoji
Why are some of our primary communication tools avoiding this issue? Why isn’t there even a hurricane icon in the official emoji set?
Each icon has a profound meaning in this emoji set. In fact, the team of media artists expressed the serious natural disasters that have occurred on the earth since 2017 in the form of emoji. Need an emoji to express your frustration with plastic pollution? Thanks to Climoji, now you have a whale with a plastic bottle in its stomach, or a plastic bottle with a fish skeleton inside.
©climoji
Climoji was launched as an art project under New York University’s Green Grants by NYU professor/environmental artist Marina Zurkow and designer Viniyata Pany. “This isn’t an issue for the future”, Zurkow says in an interview with The Verge. “So it seems imperative to make ways for people to talk about it. I've been making art about climate change and sort of what I would call ‘near-impossible nature-culture collisions’ since 2006. I've looked for increasingly diverse ways to address problems that are either abstract or repulsive for people to think about and often are hot button issues. I've historically tried to use some amount of humor or at least levity or lightness as a kind of invitation to consider the topic at hand.”
✓ PIC | Vision China x Energy Observer
In October 2020, a wildfire broke out in the Chino Mountains in California, USA, and the Blue Ridge fire approached houses, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
✓ PIC | Vision China x Energy Observer
On February 22, 2021, citizens were evacuated in the water after heavy rains and flooding occurred in Bekasi, Indonesia.
✓ PIC | Vision China x Energy Observer
On December 26, 2020, the smog in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, was severe. Real-time rankings show that Bishkek is the world's most polluted city.
✓ PIC | Vision China x Energy Observer
In June 2018, a large number of glaciers in Svalbard, Norway melted, and the living environment of polar bears deteriorated.
✓ PIC | Vision China x Energy Observer
On January 26, 2021, a tornado hit Fulton, Alabama. One person was killed and about 30 people were injured in the disaster. Some local homes were badly damaged and their roofs were torn off. Vehicles were overturned on the streets, utility poles fell and trees were uprooted.
✓ PIC | Vision China x Energy Observer
In 2016, Beirut, Lebanon was "besieged by garbage", and the garbage piled up and forced to occupy the driveway.
"I think emoji have become great shorthand for people who are influencers. All emoji are metaphors: lips are a metaphor for love, for kissing someone. So, can these things as visual metaphors amplify and naturalize the conversation around climate change? So I’m hoping that people will be able to use these as a kind of invitation to a conversation." shares Marina.
The most obvious example would be the drowning arm sticking out of the whirlpool: if that becomes an icon for personal despair, does that steer us away from the conversation of climate change or do we think of flooding and drowning as an everyday enough occurrence to become a metaphor?
©climoji
From biodiversity loss to glacial melt to flooding to landfill and waste production to pollution, etc. you may think this set of emoji is way too negative to be used. The team later also developed another set of mitigation, adaptation and resiliency responses, in hope to encourage everyone to act now, even starting with small steps in daily life!
©climoji
And here, GREENEXT also calls on our community to invest in our planet, starting by small eco-friendly steps in our daily life. Every action to sustainable living is worth being encouraged!
✓ PIC｜Climoji x GREENEXT
In a warm afternoon, ride to explore the cities you live!
✓ PIC｜Climoji x GREENEXT
Bringing your own reusable coffee cups can help as well!
✓ PIC｜Climoji x GREENEXT
And don't forget to connect with nature, to feel its energy!
✓ PIC｜Climoji x GREENEXT
A diet rich in vegetables and fruits can not only help to slow greenhouse-gas emissions, but also benefit our health!
✓ PIC｜Climoji x GREENEXT
Commute via public transportation also inherently benefits the environment!
climoji is also free for download:
www.climoji.org/the-climoji