We have a #cheer today for the “Climoji” set available for Apple and Android users, which paints a grim, but realistic picture of what climate change looks like.
The set includes emojis of dying animals, pollution, extreme weather, and even drowning people…not exactly a hopeful outlook, but that was kind of the point, said Marina Zurkow, one of the the creator of the stickers. Need an emoji to express your frustration with plastic pollution? Thanks to Zurkow and her partner, Viniyata Pany, now you can text a friend a whale with a plastic bottle in its stomach, or a plastic bottle with a fish skeleton inside.
“We felt like one of the big problems is people don’t call climate change what it is,” Zurkow told Earther in an interview. “People don’t connect to the outcomes of a lot of anthropogenic destruction that we all participate in a really everyday way.”
Climoji was launched as an art project, thanks to New York University’s Green Grants, but Zurkow plans to make it bigger. In the spring, she wants to approach Facebook, and see if the social media giant will add the stickers to its own library. And eventually, she’d like the Unicode Consortium, the Silicon Valley-based group of computer and internet companies that approve new emoji, to adopt the climate change icons.
Climate change is already affecting the world, from rising temperatures to rising sea levels. Hurricanes and wildfires made 2017 the most expensive year on record for natural disasters — and scientists say that these catastrophic events will become the new normal as the world continues to warm up. Check out our list of 10 things you can do today to make a difference against climate change.