The City of Chicago is hosting CoolGlobes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet, an innovative public art project of 124 extraordinary globes designed to create awareness and inspire practical solutions to global warming. Solutions that we can put into practice every day...at home, on the job and in school.

The exhibit features over 100 sculpted globes, each five feet in diameter, displayed along Chicago’s lakefront from The Field Museum north and at Navy Pier. Artists from around the world, including Jim Dine, Yair Engel, Tom Van Sant and Juame Plensa, designed the globes, using a variety of materials to transform their plain white sphere to create awareness and provoke discussion about potential solutions to global warming.

Leading by example, CoolGlobes is a carbon neutral project. To offset the carbon emitted from the energy needed to create and maintain the exhibit and related events, CoolGlobes has developed a diversified strategy that includes donated “green tags” (renewable energy certificates), investments to plant trees and foster environmentally friendly agricultural practices, and in-kind donations from alternative energy companies.

CoolGlobes was launched in Chicago because of the City’s leadership and dedication to promoting environmentally sound policies. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s goal is to make our city the greenest in the nation through the promotion of environmental programs and practices, including a bike initiative, adding hybrid buses to the city’s mass transit system, and building “green” libraries, public schools and police stations. Mayor Daley is serving as honorary co-chair of the CoolGlobes project.

CoolGlobes also features 200 mini-globes displayed around the city throughout the summer; again, each mini-globe depicts a solution to global warming. Mini-globes were designed by some of the same artists who are working on the full-size globes, as well as by celebrities, including actor Chris O’Donnell, U.S. Senator Barack Obama and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Students participating in Chicago’s After School Matters Gallery 37 after-school arts program for teens designed 40 of the mini-globes.

FOCUSING ON SOLUTIONS

The popularity of Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” has led to growing public concern about the issue of global warming. CoolGlobes leverages this heightened awareness by using the medium of public art to unite corporate, government and nonprofit organizations in issuing a call-to-action to encourage changes in day-to-day lifestyle and business operations that will reduce adverse environmental impact.

Throughout the summer, Chicagoans and other exhibit visitors will be challenged to implement five changes in their daily lives or business operations to combat global warming. Pledges can be made at the CoolGlobes and Chicago Sun-Times Web sites. At the end of the summer, a raffle will be held to award a Toyota Prius to one of the pledge participants.

Check out the Gallery of Cool Globes:  http://www.coolglobes.com/globes_gallery2.htm 

About Cool Globes, the Project:  http://www.coolglobes.com/aboutcg.htm