From Green To Red by Beatie Wolfe

An Environmental Protest Piece Built From 800,000 Years of Our Planet's Data

Art rebel Beatie Wolfe creates a stirring environmental art piece about human impact on the planet, built using 800,000 years of historic NASA data. “From Green to Red” (taken from the title of a song Wolfe wrote in 2006 after seeing ‘An Inconvenient Truth') tracks the impact of human behaviour on the planet, creating a stirring visualization of rising CO2 levels, and asks us the question is it too late to turn back?

Wolfe’s innovation reimagines the music video format (and protest song), taking the audience on a journey through the planet’s timeline. “This piece is about re-presenting data in a way that people can literally see differently, using the power of art and music to make it evocative and relatable,” Wolfe says, “so that people can really get a sense of where we are right now”.

800,000 CE | CO₂ 🌍 600,000 CE | 229 CO₂ ppm 🌎 600,000 CE | 237 CO₂ ppm 🌏 500,000 CE | 231 CO₂ ppm 🌍 400,000 CE | 283 CO₂ ppm 🌎 300,000 CE | 236 CO₂ ppm 🌏 200,000 CE | 247 CO₂ ppm 🌍 100,000 CE | 236 CO₂ ppm 🌎 1 AD | 276 CO₂ ppm 🌏 1600 | 276 CO₂ ppm 🌍 1800 | 274 CO₂ ppm 🌎 1900 | 280 CO₂ ppm 🌏 1920 | 305 CO₂ ppm 🌍 1940 | 307 CO₂ ppm 🌎 1960 | 317 CO₂ ppm 🌏 1980 | 340 CO₂ ppm 🌍 2000 | 371 CO₂ ppm 🌎 2010 | 391 CO₂ ppm 🌏 2014 | 400 CO₂ ppm 🌍 2018 | 408 CO₂ ppm 🌎 2019 | 411 CO₂ ppm 🌏 2020 | 412 CO₂ ppm 🌍 2022 | 422 CO₂ ppm 🌎 2025 | 427 CO₂ ppm 🟢

800,000 CE | CO₂ 🌍 600,000 CE | 229 CO₂ ppm 🌎 600,000 CE | 237 CO₂ ppm 🌏 500,000 CE | 231 CO₂ ppm 🌍 400,000 CE | 283 CO₂ ppm 🌎 300,000 CE | 236 CO₂ ppm 🌏 200,000 CE | 247 CO₂ ppm 🌍 100,000 CE | 236 CO₂ ppm 🌎 1 AD | 276 CO₂ ppm 🌏 1600 | 276 CO₂ ppm 🌍 1800 | 274 CO₂ ppm 🌎 1900 | 280 CO₂ ppm 🌏 1920 | 305 CO₂ ppm 🌍 1940 | 307 CO₂ ppm 🌎 1960 | 317 CO₂ ppm 🌏 1980 | 340 CO₂ ppm 🌍 2000 | 371 CO₂ ppm 🌎 2010 | 391 CO₂ ppm 🌏 2014 | 400 CO₂ ppm 🌍 2018 | 408 CO₂ ppm 🌎 2019 | 411 CO₂ ppm 🌏 2020 | 412 CO₂ ppm 🌍 2022 | 422 CO₂ ppm 🌎 2025 | 427 CO₂ ppm 🟢

highlights so far

UN Climate Change Conference (COP26)

COP26 invited Beatie Wolfe to project her environmental art piece about human impact on the planet, built using 800,000 years of NASA data charting rising CO2 levels, 550ft wide onto Norman Forsters' iconic Armadillo building. This will be the first time From Green to Red has been shown in this form with Wolfe joining Olafur Eliasson, JR and Darren Aronofsky in projecting her art piece for the UN Climate Change Conference - watch (+)

London Design Biennale

The 2021 London Design Biennale unveiled the interactive version of Beatie Wolfe’s environmental protest art piece. This renowned global gathering of the world’s most ambitious and imaginative designers, curators, and design institutes took over Somerset House where ‘From Green to Red’ was installed in its own gallery space for the month of June. See the interactive version of From Green to Red - here (+)

Installation supported by: The Utley Foundation

Nobel Prize Summit

The Nobel Prize organisation invited Beatie Wolfe to speak, perform, and show her environmental protest piece ‘From Green To Red’ at its inaugural summit following Sir David Attenborough and Al Gore. Beatie Wolfe was introduced on stage by her friend and space beaming collaborator Nobel Laureate Dr Robert Wilson. Watch her segment - here (+)

Ars Electronica Museum

To mark the museums two year climate exhibition which contains three pieces by Beatie Wolfe, From Green to Red was adapted by the artist and Ars Electronica Futurelab for the façade of the Ars Electronica Centre. The historical CO2 data collected by NASA was converted into colours to impressively illuminate the façade - here (+)

Further highlights

  • New York Times Climate Hub

    New York Times

    Beatie joins Es Devlin in opening The New York Times climate hub at COP in Glasgow with a conversation with the NYT's deputy editor about her work, followed by a live performance and presentation of From Green to Red

    Read More

  • Webby’s Anthem Awards Win

    From Green to Red by Beatie Wolfe wins Silver at Webby’s inaugural Anthem Awards in a category where Nat Geo took Gold and Disney took Bronze

    Learn More

  • Channel 4 News

    Channel 4 News live interviews Beatie Wolfe at COP26. Krishnan Guru-Murthy talks to musician Beatie Wolfe on what inspired her artwork projected on the COP26 building

    Stream Interview

  • COP26 Presidency Highlight Event

    During this high profile session, dedicated to deforestation, Beatie Wolfe performed live and shared From Green to Red plus extracts of her “Urban Wood” documentary

  • Museum of Science Official Logo

    Museum of Science, Boston

    The Museum of Science Boston invited Beatie to be its first event since lockdown where she spoke with the Boston Globe about her work, performed live and showed From Green to Red

    MoS Website

  • TED Women

    TED Women invited Beatie Wolfe to hold a MasterClass and talk about the global impact of From Green to Red. Beatie’s session with TED was titled “Activating Awareness: The Power of Art”

    Click Here
  • Barbican Center

    Barbican Center

    BETA TEST: The Barbican invited Wolfe to take over its public gallery to exhibit ‘From Green to Red’ in its beta form - coinciding with the premiere of a documentary the Barbican had commissioned about Wolfe’s work

    Barbican Listing
  • BBC World Service

    BBC

    BETA TEST: BBC Radio 4 & World Service’s flagship tech program Digital Planet - with a global audience of over 279 million - joined Beatie Wolfe at The Barbican. Listen to the podcast (+) jump to 13mins

    Listen on BBC

  • Dezeen's Virtual Design Festival

    BETA TEST: Dezeen invited Beatie Wolfe to host a day of its Virtual Design Festival in collab w/ The Design Museum, Serpentine Gallery, MAAT & more. A session dedicated to “From Green to Red” preview was held

    Visit Dezeen

  • The Wall Street Journal

    COVID CANCELLED // The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival which selects the most revolutionary, business-changing ideas from across the world will feature Beatie Wolfe’s latest innovation

  • Cannes Lions

    COVID CANCELLED // Cannes Lions, the international festival of creativity, invited Wolfe’s latest project “From Green to Red” to be recognised for excellence in the field

  • SXSW

    COVID CANCELLED // SXSW, the world’s leading media x tech festival has invited Beatie Wolfe and Parliament (frm The Mill’s) creative director Gawain Liddiard to share this compelling data, art and environmental piece

    SXSW Listing

The Backstory

Beatie was giving a talk about her innovations at NASA's JPL (including sharing her Space Beam via the Holmdel Horn) and afterward, during the thank-you dinner held for her in the Caltech Athenaeum one of NASA's chief engineers shared this graph with Beatie. Upon seeing the graph, and experiencing a similar jolt as she did first watching An Inconvenient Truth, Beatie wanted to take the data (which can often feel cold and unrelatable) and transform it into something everyone could absorb and engage with via the power of art and music. So the art rebel created 'From Green to Red'.

The art piece and its journey would not have been possible without the support of
Parliament's Phil Crowe, Gawain Liddiard, Will MacNeil and Design I0's Theo Watson