When the World Bank Group recently held its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., Italian artist Laura Canali offered up a unique vision of a warming world.
Using bold colours and fresh, unusual designs, Canali designed five maps that beautifully illustrate what she called her "interpretation of current and future climate threats to livelihoods, ecosystems, and human well-being."
Her principal inspiration for the maps, entitled Visualising A Warming World, were the World Bank's Turn Down The Heat reports. Richly documented and published in November 2012 and in June 2013 the reports detail the potential destructive effects of unmitigated global warming.
"The goal of my maps," Canali says, "is to help people visualise a warming world and to bring scientific knowledge about climate change to a wider audience…drawing something that has not yet happened is a challenge. Representing scientific data calls for caution and respect for climate science, the scientists who study the evolution of our planet's climate, and ultimately, for the audience."
Canali's use of colour is meant to heighten the emotional impact of her maps. However, she acknowledges that ultimately it is viewers of her images who will embrace or reject the messages represented in them.
Canali hopes that through her maps people become more aware of the increasingly severe impacts of climate change and will be motivated to take action.
Climate change may be the biggest challenge of our generation and as deliberations at the World Bank's annual meetings are demonstrating, bringing an end to extreme poverty will be impossible without tackling climate change.
Click the below links to view the maps
Desertification, heat waves, droughts and flooding
Warming is likely to have more severe impacts on the tropics
Rising sea levels are affecting African cities
Food production at risk and population movement in Africa
Coastal zones and productivity at risk in Southeast Asia
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