THE UNIVERSITY of Reading’s climate stripes have been all around the world since their creation in 2017, but they made a particularly profound appearance on World Environment Day, Monday, June 5.
Pope Francis was presented with a copy of the day’s Repubblica, one of Italy’s leading news outlets, and scarf, both of which were adorned with the design realised by Reading’s Prof Ed Hawkins, as he called for a united front in the fight against climate change.
The stripes show the increase in global average temperature for each year from 1850-2022, relative to the average temperature over the period as a whole.
The Pope said: “The phenomenon of climate change insistently reminds us of our responsibilities. It particularly affects the poorest and most fragile, those who have contributed least to its evolution. It is first a question of justice and then of solidarity.
“Climate change also brings us back to basing our actions on responsible cooperation on the part of everyone: our world is now too interdependent and cannot afford to be divided into blocks of countries that promote their interests in an isolated or unsustainable way.”
More than one million stripes graphics have been downloaded from more than 180 countries via the ShowYourStripes website.
Prof Hawkins said: “We’ve seen the stripes appear all over the world, including at music festivals, fashion shows and on football shirts. I could never have imagined the stripes would be shared so far and wide, reaching people who might never normally come into contact with climate science.
“Pope Francis will have introduced the climate emergency to another large part of society.
“I hope that the many people who saw him with the stripes will be inspired to start talking about the rapid warming of our planet and what we need to do to stop it.”
