Air, Architecture + Other Climates

[50.0°to 61.0° N : United Kingdom] : Carbon Transitions- 2020/21
John Cook, Ben Pollock + Laura Nica

Jamie Williams

The Atlas of The Carbon Economy

Lucy’s Mining The Sky For Diamonds

The Isle of Man, UK

http://www.thecarboneconomy.com/

'Carbon Trading' or 'Carbon Offsetting' is defined as; if a carbon intensive country or; corporation over exceeds their emissions targets, they can simply offset their annual carbon footprint by purchasing ‘Carbon Credits’ from a country or; corporation which has not yet met its emissions quota. The project aims to analyse and critique this as an existing climate mitigation strategy.

By using various data-driven drawing formats, we can visualise carbon exchanges between nations and the manipulation of the worlds island states by western economies through this carbon bartering system. Within the ether of climate change, carbon offsetting has monetised the subject of climate change into another economic model which can be controlled by power and wealth, in disregard of environmental value. Carbon as an entity within the subject of climate change has become commodified and embroiled in the economies of geo-political endeavours; following consumerist mindset that got us here in the first place.

In 2020 alone, 47.8 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere. 15.77 billion tonnes were absorbed by forests and 10.52 billion tonnes were absorbed by the ocean, totalling 26.29 billion tonnes absorbed by the planets natural carbon sinks. This leaves 21.52 billion tonnes or a 45% deficit of excess CO2 left in the atmosphere in 2020 alone. Cartographies were developed to support a theoretical architecture project which aims to strategize a technological carbon capture infrastructure based on the Isle of Man.

The project takes a critical position within todays climate and ecological crisis; challenging the myth of unlimited economic growth in our current carbon-form paradigm while reimaging of the Isle of Man’s local, yet globally influential, financial economy into one for planetary good. The project reimagines the sovereign territory to facilitate national scale carbon capture and storage, mining the sky for the carbon credit futures, while reduce atmospheric carbon to meet IPCC emissions pathways.