What are the climate stripes?
The Climate Stripes graphic consists of 170 vertical coloured bars, showing the progressive heating of our planet in a single, stark and striking image.
They were created by Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading in 2018, and show how global average temperatures have risen since 1850.
Each stripe represents the average temperature for a single year, relative to the average temperature over the period as a whole. Shades of blue indicate cooler-than-average years, while red shows years that were hotter than average. The stark band of deep red stripes on the right-hand side of the graphic show the rapid heating of our planet in recent decades.
Raise awareness and start conversations about climate change
The great thing about the climate stripes is that they raise awareness of the urgency of climate change and allow you to start conversations about it. They show how no corner of the globe is immune from the effects of global warming. Stripes images for more than 200 countries, states and cities are available to download for free from the showyourstripes.info website. People in every country can see how their home is heating and share the images, helping to start conversations about climate change.
How to show your stripes
Download the graphic for your area from the showyourstripes.info website and use it for your social media cover photos.
Post the stripes for your area on social media and start a conversation with your friends.
Knit for Climate Action
In September 2020, Common Grace in Australia, put out a call for people to Knit for Climate Action, with the idea of knitting climate stripe scarves that tell the truth about climate change.
The scarf is a simple rectangle of garter stitch of 40 stitches wide by 600 rows, 6 rows for each year over 100 years. This pattern uses 16 colours in a spectrum ranging from navy blue through paler blues to cream, yellow, orange reds to deep burgundy to illustrate warming temperatures over the last 100 years – 1920 to 2019.
You can register to knit your scarf and get the free pattern here.
Or, you can download and use the spreadsheet here!
If you’re in the UK, the lovely people at Vegan Yarn have put together a kit for you to knit these scarves. The kits have everything you need to make a scarf including knitting needles and the pattern. The yarn supplied is Tencel – made from recycled wood pulp.
Happy Knitting!
