At about six and a half feet across, the Climate Countdown Clock installed in the East Wing of the Pennsylvania Capitol building can’t compete with its predecessor, the 80’ clock in NYC’s Union Square, but the members of the Better Path Coalition and organizers of the inaugural Pennsylvania Climate Convergence believed that what it lacked in size it made up for in proximity to the people who need to see it most.
As climate clocks go, it’s no slouch on size, really. According to the clock’s maker, Greg Schwedock of climateclock.world, it’s the second largest in the country. Its bright display is hard for anyone going from one office building to another or grabbing a bite at the restaurant across the atrium to miss.
The Department of General Services, the office responsible for managing displays, had agreed to exhibit the clock until the end of the session this week, but we were encouraged by the many people we’d observed looking at the clock and reading the informational poster that sits next to it and by the occupants of the building who’d wanted to learn more about the clock or acknowledged seeing it. The clock was having its intended effect. We had wanted it to be a quiet, ever-present reminder that we are running out of time.
In Pennsylvania, there is strong bipartisan support within our government for the greenhouse gas industry. The state is second only to Texas in methane gas production. In recent years, fracked ethane gas has become the centerpiece of a petrochemical boom that serves the plastics industry. There is no better place in Pennsylvania for our climate clock to be displayed than right where it is. Most of our elected officials are operating in a gas bubble of climate denial. Our clock is there to burst it.
We asked the Department of General Services if we could keep our clock in its spot permanently. The Department declined our request. We challenged the decision by pointing out that a Pension Debt Clock has been in the same area of the building for seven years.
Just as we were preparing to have a Celebration of Life for the clock that would end with a processional carrying the clock draped in black out of the building, we reached an agreement with the Department. The clock will stay where it is for the foreseeable future.
A wonderful singer/songwriter, Matt Miskie, performed some of his original songs during the ceremony between statements on the urgent need for climate action by faith leaders from Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light, Intertwined: A Faith Community, and the Pennsylvania Council of Churches and representatives of the Better Path Coalition, Camp White Pine, Physicians for Social Responsibility PA, WaSEPA, and UUJusticePA. He closed the program with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” tweaking the lyrics in spots.
We sang it together. “There’s a better home a-waitin’ if we try, Lord, if we try.”
