The hypothesis that the rate of global warming is predicted to dramatically increase due to a significant reduction in reflection of the sun’s rays from the surface of white ice is well established. As NASA’s Earth Observatory has stated, 

All day, every day the Sun hurls a steady stream of photons toward the Earth in the form of high-energy, shortwave radiation. Some photons are reflected by atmospheric particles, clouds, snow and ice, even ocean whitecaps. Other photons are absorbed by the Earth’s land and ocean surfaces, which heat up. These heated surfaces emit photons back to the atmosphere in the form of lower-energy, long-wavelength radiation. Some of these photons eventually make it all the way back out to space. The balance of incoming and outgoing photons over the whole planet, the net radiative flux, determines Earth’s temperature “set point” (Nasa Earth Observatory, 2007).

Put simply, as the amount of ice on earth’s surface depletes, the amount of light being reflected back out to space reduces and more light is absorbed by the earth, causing it to emit more heat. This contributes directly to global warming. 

In 2010 in the village of Licapa in Peru, a team began painting an extinct glacier with a white-wash made from lime, industrial egg white and water, enacting a plan by Peruvian inventor Eduardo Gold (who was one of 26 winners in a “100 Ideas to Save the Planet” competition run by The World Bank in 2009) to re-grow a glacier. Gold proposed that changing the albedo (a measure of how strongly an object reflects light) of the rock would bring about a cooling of the peak’s surface, generating a cold micro-climate around the peak and bringing about the climatic conditions necessary for a glacier to form. (COLLYNS, 2010) 

In the work Still Hope I repeatedly paint an ice-cube black until it melts. Attempting to eliminate the reflective capacity of an ice cube alludes to the reduction in the terrestrial reflection of photons off the ice-sheets while situating this global phenomenon on a domestic scale. My choice to paint the ice-cube black rather that white  – thereby attempting to eliminate its reflective capacity rather than enhance it – positions me as an active agent contributing to the global catastrophe.