'London Futures': 'Postcards From The Future' Museum Of London Exhibit Imagines The Impact Of Climate Change By Artists Robert Graves And Didier Madoc-Jones (PHOTOS)

London Futures is a new exhibit on display at the Museum Of London featuring images depicting the possibilities that could await London in a future devastated by climate change, as imagined by artists Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.

The gallery showcases 14 digitally crafted images constructed as large back-lit transparencies, stemming from the artists' Postcards From The Future series. The project was first started in response to the 2008 G8 summit, which focused on climate change. Graves and Madoc-Jones realized that the idea of climate change was hard for people to understand in a concrete way, so they decided to craft very real images of what iconic picturesque locations in London could look like in a future left to the whim of climate change.

They didn't want to show only the destructive possibilities, but also offer hope through the promise of new technology that can be harnessed to mitigate climate change's effects. "We researched different possible scientific projections and combining these with London's postcard views told a different climate change story with each picture," Madoc-Jones says.

Check out some images from London Futures below, and view more on their website, PostcardsFromTheFuture.co.uk.
London Futures is on display at the Museum Of London from October 1, 2010 until March 6, 2011.

Images and captions provided by the artists.

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London as Venice

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London has become uninhabitable. Every year spring tides surge through the Thames Barrier, making London the new Venice. But whereas the city of gondolas has come to terms with water, London is overwhelmed. This image shows the impact of 6-metre flooding, the level required to breach the Thames Barrier. Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones. Background photography © Jason Hawkes

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London has become uninhabitable. Every year spring tides surge through the Thames Barrier, making London the new Venice. But whereas the city of gondolas has come to terms with water, London is overwhelmed.

This image shows the impact of 6-metre flooding, the level required to breach the Thames Barrier.

Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.

Background photography © Jason Hawkes

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Comments

[Publicola]

05:32 PM on 11/19/2010

Joshy X: "the earth constantly gets warmer and cooler as it wants too.. has nothing to do with puny humans"

Yawn

The following are scientific facts:

* The Earth has warmed significantly over recent decades, to what may be the highest level in 2,000 years or more.

* Anthropogenic greenhouse gases including CO2 -- which is generated mostly by fossil fuel burning -- warm the Earth. Without greenhouse gases including CO2 the average temperature of the Earth would be below freezing.

* The atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by more than a third since the dawn of the fossil fuel era, to the highest level in at least 800,000 years.

* Satellite measurements demonstrate that increasing atmospheric CO2 has increased retention of heat energy in the atmosphere.

* The scientific evidence strongly indicates that said increased atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and there is no other viable scientific explanation for said atmospheric CO2 increase.

* There is a strong correlation between said atmospheric CO2 increase and said recent warming.

* Known natural forcing agents of past global warming - including changes in orbital cycles and increases in solar radiative output - cannot explain the bulk of said recent warming. Neither has any scientific theory to explain the bulk of said recent warming other than anthropogenic global warming survived scientific scrutiny.

Again these are all scientific facts. Which is to say:

The scientific evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming is overwhelming.

[alteredstory]

03:04 PM on 11/23/2010

One other thing to add is that while in the distant past, the planet HAS had climate change that gave it the same AMOUNT of temperature increase as what is projected, said increases generally took place over a few thousand years, as opposed to the 200 year scale we're dealing with for THIS change.

[Joshy X]

08:16 PM on 11/16/2010

the earth constantly gets warmer and cooler as it wants too.. has nothing to do with puny humans who think they control the weather... volcanos and sunspots and meteors and melting and freezing and ice ages and plate techtonics... and the left seizes on it to gain control of people's wealth... tax and destroy cap and trade and new bureuacracy and stop American growth (but not China's or India's) and we all know from Al Gore that it was SUVs that killed the Woolly Mammoths... in the 1970s it was "global cooling" and "split wood not atoms" and now it's global warming and "nukes have no greenhouse gasses but burning wood does" and no it's just "climate change" now and and it's Bush's fault cuz I saw that on TV and why does Gore take corporate jets and limos again? (is it due to his and tipper's weight)?

[sonofsamphm1c]

09:53 PM on 11/16/2010

The earth warms and cools because of reasons, not superstition.

[Joshy X]

10:29 PM on 11/16/2010

yes and not Gore's superstitions... maybe he's breathed in too many fumes from that leaking zinc mine he owns or the corporate jets and limos he takes?... he's the opposite of a gandhi who at least lived what he preached

[Tsunami effect]

01:49 AM on 11/16/2010

Algore will be proud of the over the top alarmism..........so creative.......just a pity that AGW is a a fraud.....

[alteredstory]

11:15 AM on 11/16/2010

Your proof of this fraud is?

We've been providing a steady stream of research for the last 60 years - what do you have to show that it's a fraud?

The stolen emails don't show that (http://climatecrocks.com/2010/11/15/the-climate-email-hack-one-year-out-and-still-lame-as-hell/), so do you have anything else?

[Tsunami effect]

03:59 PM on 11/17/2010

That's very interesting; the only problem is that it's still a bust.............ROFL

REG!ME SOROS will be proud of you........................

[macrocosm]

12:55 AM on 11/16/2010

Ugh! That one of London with the rice patties just kills me!! NOOOOO! The custom is to flood human waste into the patties for nutrients! NOOOOO not in London!

[macrocosm]

12:53 AM on 11/16/2010

I was born in Orlando FL (eeeek) and ever since I was a child I would always imagine it under water, now it would seem its actually a possibility. Good thing I moved far away from that low tech $hlt hole!

Learn to swim deniers!

[Tsunami effect]

01:50 AM on 11/16/2010

Keep taking the Thorazine.....

[macrocosm]

12:46 AM on 11/17/2010

You shouldn't take such drugs .. its quite harmful to your health IMO.

[alteredstory]

11:16 AM on 11/16/2010

The problem is that they're not the only ones who're going to get hit by this. They're doing their best to take the rest of us down with them.

[cheeeeeeese]

02:41 PM on 11/09/2010

More people need to see these pictures so they can wake up.

[Tsunami effect]

01:51 AM on 11/16/2010

The problem is that it's only the prog sheeplets who are affected by it. Everyone else just laughs.......AGW is a bust

[alteredstory]

11:18 AM on 11/16/2010

Again, I challenge you to show proof of your claims, otherwise you're just making it up because you want to live in your own fairy tale where actions have no consequences.

[sonofsamphm1c]

09:05 AM on 11/08/2010

I've been trying to find some sort of answer for when scientist are predicting seal level rise will reach 6 meters (19.685 feet.) This link, download the report, pages 37 and 38:

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/default.html

the PDF:

http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_HIGH.pdf

The range in 2300 is about 180 cm to 500 cm. Obviously the number of millimeters of increase per year is substantially higher than the current rate of 3.4 mm per year.

[Publicola]

12:01 PM on 11/08/2010

Dr. Susan Solomon in March 2009 Congressional testimony:

----------­----------­---------

Sea level rose by about 6 inches in the 20th century...

It is well established that water expands when heated [and] that small glaciers worldwide have lost mass as the world has warmed, supplying more liquid water to the ocean and contributing to sea level rise. These two processes are well understand and can be expected to produce up to 3 feet of sea level rise within about the next two to three centuries if carbon dioxide continues to increase. Three feet of sea level rise would inundate many small islands and low lying coastal regions, such as Florida, and this is already becoming part of coastal planning in many regions.

A third process may be very important but is very poorly understood, rapid flow on the great ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland... The total contribution to sea level rise... could be on the order of a few meters over centuries, but is very uncertain.

http://www­.legislati­ve.noaa.go­v/Testimon­y/solomon0­31709.pdf

[SecondTime]

03:25 PM on 11/08/2010

The seals will rise and fall with the sea, in my opinion that it.

[Publicola]

04:41 PM on 11/08/2010

In your opinion the Moon violates the Laws of Physics.

That's indication that you should stop taking science denier sites like the aptly-named ClimateChangeFraud.com seriously, SecondTime - trust me on this.

[cheeeeeeese]

02:42 PM on 11/09/2010

100 percent of scientist agree about climate change

[Dangerous Dan]

12:03 AM on 11/08/2010

If cities can not adjust their boundries to meet rising waters, in the calculated time frame, the citizens of New Orleans would be absolved for not fleeing a catigory 4 Hurricane with 4 days warning.

[Dangerous Dan]

11:56 PM on 11/07/2010

It has been pointed out that all the liberal bastions are located on both of our coasts.
The Republican Plan of Global Climate Disruption is slowly wiping those footholds from our map.
If Obama continues his current course, we could end this project without further land loss, just from voter apathy and conservative independant converts.

[alteredstory]

02:42 PM on 11/08/2010

Which would still indicate a misunderstanding of basic climate science and predictions, since the Midwest and the south will probably suffer the most, from drought and flooding.

[SecondTime]

03:26 PM on 11/08/2010

One man's bastion, is another man's lunatic asylum.

[cincinnati]

06:56 PM on 11/07/2010

Let's remember to tell Congress, especially the conservative Republicans,
that there's no such thing as climate change.....so when some of
Texas, La., Mississippi, Alab., Florida, S. and N. Carolina, etc.
are literally losing cities THEY can pay for the
damages......in TRILLIONS...$$$$$$

Don't ask us taxpayers in Ohio, etc. for the money !

[alteredstory]

07:40 PM on 11/07/2010

riiiight, because the rich and powerful are ALWAYS the ones who get it worst when things go bad...

[Dangerous Dan]

11:59 PM on 11/07/2010

Hey! Repubs and Deniers are just being ecologicly aware.
We are just returning these areas to the wetlands they once were.

[BluePhantom2]

06:06 PM on 11/07/2010

That is a cool picture. A 6 meter rise in how long? Won't an asteriod have finnished us off by then? or maybe the ozone hole, global cooling, ocean acidification or even nuc terrorism followed by snowball earth what about a super volcano or mega thrust quakes? And they totally left out my favorite "ALIEN INVASION".

[alteredstory]

06:11 PM on 11/07/2010

Estimates range from 50 to 100 years, some a bit longer. As I have discussed at length further down, there are many factors that affect the rate of sea level rise.

If you're waiting for a bigger apocalypse to come along and make global warming something we don't have to worry about by comparison, I'm afraid you're out of luck

[sonofsamphm1c]

06:25 PM on 11/07/2010

alteredstory - I do not think there is an estimate on when it will reach 6 meters. Right now the outside bound is just under two meters by 2100.

[alteredstory]

07:42 PM on 11/07/2010

Sorry - those are TWO meter predictions (six feet). I stand wrong there.

I don't know when the 6 meter rise is estimated for - probably farther out than we can easily predict.

[alteredstory]

12:32 PM on 11/11/2010

One estimate, if NON-sea ice melt continues to double every decade, is 2100 for a 5 meter rise. This coming from James Hensen

[MikeWebster]

11:35 PM on 11/15/2010

James Hanson. The other estimates mentioned above to not account for ice melt.

[WARHUKKER]

04:58 PM on 11/07/2010

Scientist also predicted another ice age in the seventies.

[alteredstory]

05:04 PM on 11/07/2010

here we go again...

the MEDIA predicted an ice age in the '70s, SCIENTISTS, for the most part, did NOT.

For a more detailed rebuttal of this tired, repeatedly disproven, and depressingly persistent claim, please go here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-intermediate.htm

[sonofsamphm1c]

06:06 PM on 11/07/2010

Here is a graph that shows the number of scientific articles in the last half of the 1960s and the 1970s that either predicted coming cooling or were neutral as to whether or not temperature were rising or falling or predicted warming:

http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/bams-cooling.jpg

45 scientific articles predicted global warming

20 scientific articles were neutral

7 scientific articles predicted cooling, the last of which was published in 1977

In 1906 Arrhenius, a scientist, predicted that global temperatures would rise due to mankind's combustion of fossil fuels. He was right as rain.

Without mankind's influence, the globe should be heading for an ice age. Temperatures should have gotten colder during the 20th Century. Sea level should have declined during the 20th Century. That is why some scientists wrote papers about global cooling. They had either not heard of Arrhenius' prediction, or, like so many of today's nitwit politicians and citizens, they thought he was Al Gore's Grandfather.

[Publicola]

06:02 PM on 11/07/2010

Science denier talking points never die, no matter how many times a stake is driven through their hearts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3S0fnOr0M

[WARHUKKER]

11:44 AM on 11/08/2010

Go to website NIPCC a group of scientist that question climate change is man made

[Publicola]

11:58 AM on 11/08/2010

WARHUKKER: "Go to website NIPCC a group of scientist that question climate change is man made"

Hate to be the one to break it to you WARHUKKER, but here on the internet you can find groups saying all sorts of science denialism. For example:

Go to website Discovery Institute - "a group of scientists" that question evolution.

Do you question evolution science too, WARHUKKER? If not, why the double standard with respect to climate science?

[sonofsamphm1c]

03:08 PM on 11/07/2010

For those who want to read the actual writings of a scientist who studies sea level rise, here is Rahmstorf's website:

http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/

[alteredstory]

03:47 PM on 11/07/2010

This is an excellent link!

You can find a list of his publications, with links to them, in the menu on the right-hand side. I've read a couple of his papers before, but only in passing while looking for other research, so he wasn't really on my radar. Bookmarked, F&F, and thanks for the link, sonofsam.

[sonofsamphm1c]

01:22 PM on 11/07/2010

I" asked you to provide a citation before and you ignored me. What is your source, and WHEN WAS THE PREDICTION FOR? ..." - alteredstory

This is what is is talking about:

http://dir.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/23/weather/index.html

[alteredstory]

02:33 PM on 11/07/2010

Well, ok, I answered, but for some reason I also got moderated. Not sure what's up with that, but maybe my answer will show up later. Either way, thanks for the link...

[sonofsamphm1c]

02:45 PM on 11/07/2010

I do not believe the journalist/author in question remembers the conversation correctly. There is nothing in any of James Hansen's scientific writings that would indicate he has ever believed a highway along the Hudson would be underwater by 2010.

[gwsuperheroes]

12:29 PM on 11/07/2010

The future of humanity depends on us:

http://globalwarmingsuperheroes.com/

GG

[alteredstory]

12:41 PM on 11/07/2010

Thanks for the link, I'll take the time to go over it later.

You might want to avoid blatant self-promotion (like making a new posting ID and immediately linking to a specific site), since it can make the mods cranky.