2024
Chalk pastel on paper (50cm X 40cm)
Chalk pastel on paper (50cm X 40cm)
Chalk pastel on paper (50cm X 40cm)
Chalk pastel on paper (50cm X 40cm)
Litmus
In the 14th century scientists discovered that various coloured organic compounds obtained from lichen turn red in acidic and blue in alkaline solutions. Litmus is thus a decisively indicative test of acidity or alkalinity. Some six centuries ago ‘litmus test’ started being used figuratively - it is primarily regarded as a critical indication of future success or failure. ‘Litmus#1’ and ‘Litmus#2’ are part of my ongoing creative themes that reflect threats to plurality as biodiversity, especially how those impact oceans.
Catastrophic global warming during the Permo-Triassic (some 250 million years ago) caused by carbon dioxide emissions from Siberian Trap eruptions led to massive changes in oceans, notably anoxia, stagnation, acidification and siltation. The results were mass extinctions and an estimated 80% loss of biodiversity. At the end of the Permian multi-cellular life almost succumbed, completely. Comparing Earth today with the end-Permian reveals some startling similarities. The rate at which carbon dioxide increased at end Permian was excessive and combined with the even more potent greenhouse gas methane, proved calamitous.
Currently rates of CO2 emissions are far higher and acidification of oceans is accelerating – as CO2 dissolves into seawater it produces carbonic acid. As at the end-Permian, oceans are warming. Since the 1950s low-oxygen bottom waters have expanded eight-fold to over 35 million square kilometres and oxygen loss from the oceans occurs at the rate of more than a gigaton every single year. An estimated quarter of the 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide released by human activities each year is absorbed by the sea. Hypoxic (anoxic) dead zones of the ocean are predominantly due to anthropogenic factors such as pollution (agricultural, industrial, vehicular) and global warming. Thus the oxygen required to support marine life is depleted.
The major challenge of deriving value from biodiversity is germane to sustainability – sustainable social and economic development must be environmentally sustainable. To avoid similar apocalyptic end-Permian atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and cataclysmic global temperatures it is imperative for human activity to be drastically modified. A final Litmus test will indicate future success or failure of life on Earth as we know it.
Litmus 1
Mixed media on canvas (100cm X 100cm)
Litmus 2
Mixed media on canvas (100cm X 100cm)
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