Giant globes parade along Chicago’s lakefront this summer to remind everyone to think about solutions to global warming.
The outdoor exhibit of more than 120 fiberglass globes, called “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet,” will be at the Museum Campus and Navy Pier until September. Each globe is more than 7 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter and has been decorated by a professional artist focused on a particular solution. Reducing your carbon footprint, for instance, is the subject of a globe featuring shoes. A globe decorated in a blue sweater knitted from 32 pounds of yarn urges people to dress warmly and turn the thermostat down.
These are really cool globes. It’s public art with a purpose in a city with a mayor who has planted the roof of City Hall to cut down on energy use. Green roofs are only a small part of Mayor Richard Daley’s efforts to make Chicago a nationally recognized environmental leader. Good for him and good for the city too.
Arguments continue over how to best deal with global warming. Lest one automatically assume that the U.S. is the bad guy in the matter, consider this: Last year carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in the U.S. declined 1.3 percent. Big deal, environmentalists might argue. Carbon dioxide emissions fell like a rock in the former Soviet Union, too, when its economy collapsed along with communism. But emissions declined in the U.S. last year while the economy grew 3.3 percent. What’s more, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports, the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy — that is, carbon dioxide emission per unit of economic output — declined 4.5 percent in 2006. More companies are finding ways to reduce emissions in cost-effective ways.
Good news for a cool globe.
