University of Reading’s BT Tower Joins Global Landmarks in Displaying Climate Stripes
Climate stripes showing Earth’s rapid warming are being displayed on landmarks all around the world for Show Your Stripes Day 2024.
To announce Show Your Stripes Day, the stripes illuminated BT Tower in London on Thursday, 20 June.
Earlier in the week, the stripes were projected onto an Ecotricity wind turbine at Lynch Knoll Wind Farm, Stroud. Today (Fri, 21 June), Lord’s Cricket Ground and the Tower of London will showcase the stripes, with many more landmarks set to show the climate change graphic around the world.
The stripes are being projected onto landmarks, buildings and monuments to start climate conversations and encourage people to take climate action.
Professor Ed Hawkins, the University of Reading climate scientist who created the climate stripes, said: “We have started to so many climate conversations using our climate stripes, but now we need to turn these climate conversations into climate action. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 has seen another five consecutive months of record heat. A warmer world will mean more extreme weather, more devastation and more suffering.
“Show your stripes, start conversations about our warming world, and take climate action. Ask your politicians to push for net-zero emissions, live more sustainably and encourage others to act. The faster we act, the less bad the climate consequences will be.”
Stripes go global
Later this evening (Friday, 21 June), the Tower of London will be illuminated to feature the climate stripes on the White Tower. Hay Castle in Hay-on-Wye, where the climate stripes were first unveiled at the Hay Festival in 2017, displayed the stripes on Thursday, 20 June
At Lord’s Cricket Ground, the climate stripes will be on display as the ground is visited by the runners taking part in the Running Out of Time relay. Participants will then continue to Reading to celebrate Show Your Stripes Day.
In the United States of America, Climate Central will project the climate stripes onto buildings including Dublin Link Bridge, Columbus; The Six Light Bridges, Houston; Baltimore City Hall; the PECO building, Philadelphia, and on many more monuments. Find the full list.
Further afield, in Australia, Brisbane’s iconic bridges will be illuminated using Queensland’s climate stripes.
As well as being projected onto buildings across the globe, the stripes will be visible outside the Red Bull Arena Leipzig, Germany, before the EURO 2024 match between France and the Netherlands on Friday, 21 June.
Other places the stripes will appear today include:
●Ondisplay in Times Square, New York City
●The trailer of the new animated movie ‘Ozi – Voice of the Forest’
●On the racing car of Formula E team Envision Racing
Get involved
The climate stripes show the change in average annual global temperatures since 1850. Red stripes indicate hotter years and blue stripes indicate cooler years, against the average of the period 1961-2010.
After being updated with data from 2023, the global climate stripes needed a new shade of red to reflect the extreme heat recorded last year.
Stripes for cities, countries and continents have all been updated using 2023 data and can be viewed at showyourstripes.info.
Download images and use #ShowYourStripes on social media on Friday 21, June to share stripes for your city or country.