I DON'T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING

I Don't Believe in Global Warming

In December 2009, Banksy painted the words “I DON'T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING” in red capitals on a white wall beside Regent's Canal in Camden. The lower part of the statement disappeared beneath the waterline, turning an apparently straightforward declaration of climate-change denial into its own visual contradiction.

The work appeared as the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen came to an end without producing the legally binding agreement many had hoped for. Contemporary coverage on 21 December identified it as one of four new Banksy interventions around Camden's Oval Bridge responding to the moment.

The Water Makes the Work

Few Banksy interventions depend so completely on their physical location. The painted sentence alone says one thing; the canal immediately disproves it. By positioning GLOBAL WARMING partly beneath the water, Banksy turned the actual waterline into the essential element of the composition—a simple metaphor for rising sea levels.

The work is also unusually stripped back. There is no stencil figure and virtually no imagery. Its effectiveness comes from the interaction between language, architecture and water, with the reflection in the canal extending the red lettering still further into the landscape.

An Ephemeral Intervention

The mural soon became caught up in the graffiti conflict surrounding Banksy and King Robbo. By early 2010 it had been altered so that the original climate-change message was transformed into “I DON'T BELIEVE IN WAR,” accompanied by further additions.

The original work therefore survived for only a short period, but it remains one of Banksy's clearest examples of site-specific street art: remove the canal, and half the artwork disappears.