HUMUS

Humus – latin meaning soil, earth and root word for human, humility, humble, humane, humanity

Sunlight – the white light sustaining and illuminating all life on earth is the combination of all colors in the color spectrum

Biodiversity – the combination of all plant, animal, fungal, and bacterial life on earth

Societal diversity – the combination of all human life on earth

As we advance our attention, energy, and resources towards condemning each other for our differences we are simultaneously – invisibly – erasing our planet’s biodiversity, increasing earth’s temperature, and promoting a sixth mass extinction.

The installation’s colored lights represent the entire biodiversity spectrum of plant, animal, fungal and bacterial life on earth. The lights combine to form a central white light illuminating 2 climate gauges in the darkness, the Carbon Gauge, and the Deforestation Gauge.

The Carbon Gauge tracks our carbon budget, measured in time, remaining before current levels of CO2 emissions raise the earth’s temperature by 2 ° Celsius. Data for the gauge’s calculation, supplied by Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change is based on the United Nations latest findings of August, 2021.

The Deforestation Gauge tracks the amount of tropical rainforest we have eliminated to date. As of 2019, only 36% of earth’s original 14.5 million kilometers of tropical rainforest remained intact. At a current deforestation rate of 17 million hectares a year, the gauge begins with a total loss of 9,266,500 kilometers on Jan 1 2022 at midnight, and adds 17 million hectares a year, or 32 hectares a minute.