Tipping Points
A series of paintings about climate tipping points in cold regions --imagined as future museum collections.
I love the cold. I love glaciers, ice, and snow. I am fortunate enough to live on Lake Superior, where we often receive 300" of snow, and where ice once covered much of the lake for months.
But Lake Superior is now the fast warming lake in the world, and like other cold places, it's changing in terrifying ways.
Each painting in this series portrays a tipping point in cold regions, captured at the moment of massive change in the 2020s. Imagine yourself as a future museum visitor, looking at the artifacts, asking: "How did people in the 2020s respond to these tipping points?"
Did they act to prevent catastrophic climate change, so now as a future museum visitor, you are living in a resilient, joyful world where snow and ice mark the winter months?
Or did people in the 2020s fail to respond to these warnings? If so, why not?
What kind of world will we bequeath to future generations? How will they look back at traces from our snowy world?
The paintings reflect my years as a PhD student in Seattle's Burke Museum, where I worked on the avian collections and prepared many museum labels, always wondering how visitors in the future would interpret the collections.
The first painting shows ice on Lake Superior in February 2022, across from the South Entry Light. Lake Superior was still largely ice-free, as warming waters washed over ice, breaking shelves off into the world's largest freshwater lake. Average ice cover has decreased by 70% on Lake Superior.
Winter snowmelt in the Keweenaw forest, 2022. As the climate warms, creeks open up in midwinter.
The Thwaites Glacier or "Doomsday Glacier" in Antarctica, 2020. Melting of the glacier accelerated in the 2020s, and scientists discovered a warm current flowing underneath it. The Thwaites Glacier collapse caused a 10 foot rise in global sea levels (https://www.livescience.com/doomsday-glacier-close-to-tipping-point.html)
Meltwater appears on the Greenland ice sheet, March 2022, as portions of Antarctica reach 70ºF above normal.
High water on the Keweenaw, on the Lake Superior coastline. Climate change is bringing more intense rains and flooding.
Night falls on the Keweenaw
Threaded glacial river in Iceland
Storm clouds build over the Keweenaw, summer 2022
Nighthawks migrating over Lake Superior, as the waters rise
A snowy owl flies over Montreal Falls. Like many other large, predatory, migratory species, snowy owls are dwindling in the face of climate change and rapid habitat change
Reindeer on the Move: Migrations and Conservation in a Changing Climate
Reindeer in the Cairngorms, Scotland. Translocated here soon after World War II, the herd is vulnerable to climate change.
Nancy Langston, 2022, oil on panel
Ghost caribou on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Montreal Falls, summer 2022. Caribou were once the most plentiful deer species in the upper Great Lakes. Now just a few lone individuals persist.
Nancy Langston, mixed media, 2022
Reindeer grazing in the Cairngorms
Nancy Langston, 2022, acrylic on paper
Caribou migrate by swimming across flooded rivers
Nancy Langston, 2021, acrylic on paper
Reindeer in the winter boreal forest, where they scrape away ice and snow to reach the lichens beneath
Nancy Langston, 2022, acrylic on paper
Caribou migration. Learning from the natural and unnatural histories of migrations will be essential for conservation in an uncertain future.
Nancy Langston, 2022, acrylic on paper
Ghost caribou, Keweenaw Peninsula, Summer 2022
Nancy Langston, mixed media, 2022
Reindeer and their human kin are profoundly affected by mining along their migration routes. But mining in the north may need to expand to provide the minerals needed for energy transitions.
Nancy Langston, digital image, 2021
We are living in a time of rapid environmental change. What will future environmental historians think of us? How will we respond to tipping points in ways that make the future more sustainable? Or will we fail to respond?
These paintings convey changes in the Great Lakes and other cold regions, where the waters are rising, forests are dying, fire cycles are changing, wildlife is vanishing, and people are struggling. But these are the places that we still love, places that remain heartbreakingly beautiful even as they undergo massive transformation.
