Feature story - December 7, 2010
TckTckTck partners, Greenpeace and 350.org, have staged a haunting underwater action to highlight the need for urgent action as the UN Cancun climate talks go into their second week.
The 400 life-sized statues were nine metres below the sea, off the Mexican coast. Activists from around South America were photographed underwater with the statues, dressed in everyday wear, including suits, jeans, dresses and surf gear.
Dive Amongst the Statues at the Underwater Art Installation
Divers swim amongst under water statues off the coast of Mexico. Their actions are to illustrate that if urgent action is not taken, millions of people face losing their homes and their livlihoods as sea levels rise.
"These statues were designed and created to live beneath the sea and to form part of the ocean environment. Real people, however, cannot live underwater. Yet, without action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 100 million people or more could be in danger of losing their homes, their lives, or both to rising seas. Ministers need to make the right choices this week, and set us on a path that will save the climate, and ourselves," said Brady Bradshaw, from Greenpeace US student network.
Dive Amongst the Statues at the Underwater Art Installation
The divers were showing that if urgent action is not taken, millions of people face losing their homes and their livlihoods as sea levels rise.
"Art can convey the urgency of our situation in a different way than the science," said Vanessa Dalmau of 350.org, a global campaign that organized over a dozen climate themed public art events, each visible from space, in the lead up to the Cancun meetings. "I dove underwater to try and help stop the rising seas that threaten my home in the Dominican Republic."
Ministers have one week to make a key set of decisions that will build momentum towards an agreement to prevent dangerous climate change. This agreement must be built on the Kyoto Protocol and will have to tackle the gap between current emission reductions and what the planet needs to survive.