This is A.T.R.E.E.M (Automated Tree-Rental for Emission Encaging Machine) by Nitipak Samsen, a student at the Design Interactions course at the RCA in London. Samsen’s artwork is a satire on the notion of carbon credits: by measuring the girth of the tree, this meter purports to measure carbon the tree is capturing over its lifetime. “Carbon credit brings the ‘convenience’ back to the ‘inconvenient truth’,” announces Samsen, enthusiastically on his website.

See also Francesca Galeazzi’s artwork about justifying carbon offsetting.

Thanks to Groundswellblog.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology