There are benches along the water in Copenhagen that you physically cannot sit on. They tower over the ordinary ones beside them, legs stretched to an almost comic height.
They are not a design mistake. The seat is set at the level the sea is projected to reach by 2100 — a one metre rise, made suddenly, stupidly literal. You don’t read a statistic. You stand next to it and look up.
The carousel, in text
1. These benches in Copenhagen are tall af but there’s a purpose behind them.
2. If global warming continues at the current rate, sea levels could rise by one meter by 2100. That may not seem significant today but it will mean everything to future generations.
3. To draw attention to how catastrophic this could be, Copenhagen built future benches.
4. They stand tall in comparison to the ordinary benches, indicating how high water levels are expected to rise, and how the time to act is now.
