In an effort to eliminate any doubt about the severity of climate change, graphic designer Milton Glaser has launched a campaign to change the language around it. Glaser, the designer of ‘I Heart NY” fame, has created a badge and poster campaign entitled “It’s Not Warming, It’s Dying” that he hopes will drive home the reality of climate change and move discourse away from soft, ambiguous terms like ‘global warming’. “There is no more significant issue on earth than it’s survival,” Glaser told Dezeen. “The question is, ‘how can anyone not be involved?”
Glaser’s design for the campaign’s poster and buttons is simple, yet it gets the message across. It’s a green disc that’s mostly blacked out with ‘smoke,’ symbolizing an aerial view of the Earth with not much in the way of life remaining on it. The green part is printed with day-glow ink for the greatest impact possible. The artist told Dezeen that he can’t really relate how the concept came about, but that “ . . . symbolically, the disappearance of light seemed to be an appropriate way to begin.”
Related: The Cost of Doing Nothing: The Economist Looks at How Climate Change Threatens Our Economy.
Badges can be purchased from the It’s Not Warming website for $5 for a set of five, and all proceeds from the badges will go toward the production and distribution of more badges. Glaser’s goal is to get half the planet’s population wearing them: “If half the people on earth wear the button even the ‘masters of the universe’ will be moved to action,” he told Dezeen, referring to large corporations he says are preventing definitive action against climate change.
“Those of us responsible for communicating ideas to others must bear the burden of the consequences of such communication,” Glaser said. “If one is looking for a purpose and theme to their life, avoiding the worst event in human history is a good place to begin.”
Via Dezeen
Images courtesy of It’s Not Warming, It’s Dying, and Flickr Creative Commons, kevinmills
