Carbon ruins scotland

Exhibited in the Green Zone at COP26 2nd Nov and at the RCC Gallery in Glasgow 7th-10th November. If you’re keen to host the exhibit, get in touch.

Welcome to the 2053 exhibition Carbon Ruins! It was created as a repository for our collective memory of the fossil fuel era and to open out a discussion on what living sustainably in a post-fossil society actually entails. The exhibition is also a way to mark the historic fact that the world managed to limit global warming and that we reached our goal of net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases five years ago. Here in Scotland, despite some bumps, we made it in 2048, slightly overshooting our initial target of 2045, set by the Climate Change Act of 2008/19.  

This mobile exhibit was created to allow the entire country to participate in the conversation. Versions of it can be found everywhere, from Galashiels to Grangemouth, Skye to Cellardyke, and of course you can virtually visit the original museum pages.

Scotland’s entanglements with fossil fuels were long and deep. A heated conversation developed back in the 20s, surrounding the extent of our ‘carbon debts’ owed to the rest of the world, in being a crucible for the historical development of the steam and coal age, and for our subsequent history with oil and gas; a history longer and messier than we tended to acknowledge. This proved a powerful argument to those who sought to maintain the status quo when the urgency to act proportionately became impossible to ignore. But petroculture had to end and end it did.

The collection displays and documents remnants and artefacts of the high carbon era. It details their journey to obsolescence by estranging them from their original context as (sometimes unrealised) carbonized objects and agents of climate breakdown and injustice. From 2053, as we look back on the petroculture we once lived, we can finally – and perhaps a little sheepishly – acknowledge that its benefits were outweighed by its harms. There was grief and loss experienced in the transition, for sure. It was not without struggle and cost. But now, as we experience a greener and more equitable world, and realise the range of benefits that we continue to develop, we can consign the age of carbon to the museum.

Objects

Ski equipment

Jar of North Sea Oil

‘Decarbonised’ whiskey bottle

Coal

Sign from Torness Nuclear Plant

Seasoned Wood

The last fast-food hamburger

In Vitro Cookbook

The more temperate average weather inevitably meant that the Scottish ski industry – already struggling with erratic snowfall at the turn of the 21st century – eventually folded altogether. The final ‘run’ was made in 2037, on artificial snow at Glenshee. There have been impromptu ‘skidashes’ since, on days of erratic and heavy snowfall. But these remain rare. Some of the ski areas repurposed for mountain biking and a new culture of mudsports, but the increased intensity of rainstorms made landslides common and the terrain became too volatile for companies to manage. Following the Icelandic ‘Glacier Funeral’ tradition, inculcated in the early 21st century, a ‘memorial’ service for the final Highland permanent snowpatch took place at Braeriach’s Garbh Choire Mòr, Cairngorm in 2026.

Some of you will remember ski-ing in Scotland. We do not assume it will return in its original form, given the impact of warming, but we have also witnessed the installation of more artificial outdoor ski runs throughout the country, using hemp/bioplastics and other new sustainable synthetics.  

NB: The fight for climate action gained an unlikely ally in sports athletes. Leading up to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, athletes staged very visual protests. Skiers stood in full gear in paddling pools filled with water. Ice skaters fell repeatedly as they tried to do pirouettes on non-refrigerated ice, over and over and over to really show how the sport would fair in a changing climate. This took climate activism to a whole new section of the population.

Footballers protested about the pitches they had to play on; the petro-ownership of elite teams; the aviation miles they burned. Supporters also complained about flooded pitches in amateur games.  

Summer sports were also affected. In 2032, a number of deaths due to heat strokes in city marathons across the world put the issue of urban heat islands front and centre in the running world. Top runners allied together and refused to participate in races put on by nations currently non-compliant with the Paris Agreement, which was the ruling international agreement at the time. 

Back to top.

North Sea oil was always ‘late oil’. We knew from the start it would not last, but the industry was a key battleground over the rate of transition and climate mitigation. Even in the early 2020s, despite advanced decommissioning, despite various reports from the UN and IPCC and a series of pressure groups campaigning to prevent the licensing of new blocks and the opening of new fields, industry and government decided to keep their options open. The controversial ‘Cambo’ field, North West of the Shetland islands was granted operational ‘go’ in 2022, despite Glasgow’s hosting of the COP26 talks. This led to cascading protests across Scottish civil society, from schoolchildren to environmental groups to renewable industry advocates – including North Sea oil workers. In the end, all this pressure paid off, with domestic and international forces from numerous constituencies deflating the value of oil stock. The industry shrunk rapidly from 2026 and is now viewed as a historical artefact, though a powerful ‘petro-nostalgia’ is still apparent in places. The ‘Last Barrel’ from which this small sample is taken, was pipelined ashore in 2034 and is now in permanent display in the National Museum of Scotland, alongside the flare tips from the decommissioned Murchison platform and the controversial Mossmorran plant, donated in 2017 and 2026 respectively. Petroculture ran long and deep in Scotland – we loved oil, even though we long knew it was a doomed and soured relationship. It had material, political, emotional and psychological effects, influencing our sense of freedom and mobility, our work and leisure patterns. Its multiform products saturated our society. It went way deep in our culture too, as the ‘petrothrillers’ on display here demonstrate.

Back to top.

One significant sector driving decarbonisation in Scotland was the food and drinks industry. Its concerns for agricultural impacts, from soil depletion to feedstocks to erratic supply chains made it an increasingly important campaigner for net-zero. As one of Scotland’s most resonant export products the Whisky industry paid particular attention to weather patterns and nutrient cycles on grain yields and water quality. It was also very aware that whisky was a highly energy-intensive spirit to produce (more than 7 times that of gin). The Western distilleries, world famous for their peated whisky, had a particular challenge: laws forbidding peat burning, together with peat’s heightened resonance in natural restoration and as a carbon sink (‘Keep it in the Ground’ meant peat as well as oil in many places). Despite notable efforts by biochemical experts and food scientists, an adequate substitute for peatsmoke infusion could not be created. This inspired the distilleries to act. In 2021, they declared they would set their own net zero target to 2040, five years ahead of the Scottish Government. They accelerated the decarbonisation of all other aspects of their business, especially in transportation and materials, working with the new international sailboat co-operative. They worked closely with the biofuel and heat pump industry to both transition from fossil fuel and convert their waste residues for local community use. As a result, they were able to strike a deal to burn the requisite amount of peat each year. So, we still have authentic peaty whisky in the transition, to accompany those restored landscapes. Wins all round….

Back to top.

This lump of coal was taken from the Longannet plant, which was decommissioned in 2016, marking the end of coal-fired electricity generation in Scotland. Coal was in many respects the mother of all fossils, responsible for most emissions and pollution during the long fossil era. It was a crucial industry for centuries and had deep cultural and political resonance in multiple countries. The last Swedish coal plant, Värtaverket in Stockholm emitted as much carbon dioxide in its last year as all the city’s cars put together. Its owners, Stockholm Exergi, were quietly considering postponing the closing date in 2022 – but increased taxes for burning fossil fuels in heat and power plants in 2019 put an end to those plans, and during the winter 2020, the plant burned its last piece of coal. The Belchatów Power Station in Poland, the biggest CO2 emission source in the EU, finally shut down in 2036. But the historical memory and experience of coal communities – many of whom lived a ‘post-fossil’ transition decades ago, was viewed as valuable in creating a different social settlement during the years of transition.

Back to top.

Nuclear’s role in the energy transition was a contentious topic for much of the transition years, and it did in fact experience a resurgence globally. Growing economies, especially in Asia, saw it as an efficient alternative to coal and oil-based power systems. This despite the threat of disasters such as the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi catastrophe in Japan. Most Western European nuclear plants came good on their phase-out programmes: Germany in 2022, Belgium in 2025, Switzerland 2034, The Netherlands, 2033. France and Finland stalled somewhat. In Scotland, the decommissioning of Torness Nuclear Power Station in 2030 signalled the end of the 2nd generation nuclear reactor plants commissioned by the UK Government in the 1970s. No civil nuclear plants remain operational in Scotland. Decommissioning is, however, a long containment process that means a sense of nuclearity will carry way into the future. In Sweden, the Barsebäck plant became an important symbol for nuclear power. It was closed around the time of the new millennium and the other Swedish plants followed in the decades to come. The decommission of Barsebäck was finished in 2037 and we won’t see the full dismantling of Forsmark or Oskarshamn for another decade or so. From its inception in the mid-20th century, atomic culture was always an anxious form of futurism, despite its presentation as a ‘radiant infrastructure.’ Its residues and shadows will last for millennia, but the 21st century will be noted as having begun its long end.

Back to top.

This piece of seasoned Birch wood, commonly sold in petrol station forecourts, was typical fuel for the wood burning stove, which became a fashionable household feature in the early 21st century, especially in the middle-class home. Increasingly alarming studies emerged in the 2020s showing the high-polluting content of these burners, especially in urban areas. In 2022, only seasoned wood was permitted to be burned in such stoves, despite a hugely significant study published in the year previous showing that even contemporary ‘eco-burners’ had a tiny particulate pollution 750 times that of a modern HGV truck! Despite some pushback from city stove owners, who complained about the shoddy insulation of their homes and tenements, the new anti-pollution urban movements argued – successfully ­– that it was a sign of ‘polluter’s privilege’. The stoves were outlawed in 2026 and became antiques pretty quickly. Rolling film of a log fire became a quirky popular streamed television show, a sign of our deep emotional attachments to wood burning.

Back to top.

This was the epitome of the ‘energy glut’: fast, cheap & delicious. Some of you may remember taking your car in city neighbourhoods to the local burger ‘drive-thru’. As criticism grew of industrial meat, from its emissions-intensity to its ethics, the slice of protein shifted, first to plants & legumes, then to in vitro meat. But there was no saving the ‘OG’ Ham/Beefburger.

Monoculture farming practices are in retreat worldwide, but the reduction in the beef and dairy systems that dominated Europe and the Americas is perhaps the most profound. Provoked in part by the rising cost of long-haul logistics and refrigeration, the impetus came mostly from below. The spread of vegan and vegetarian lifestyles provoked a higher standard of quality and ethics among those who were still unwilling to entirely forgo animal products. But substitute meat also became more delicious and popular, with its own localised cultures of consumption.

Displayed before you is the last fast-food burger ever served, from 2038. People still put slices of protein between buns – but golden arches and Royales are no more. Preserved and donated by Jerome de Gruyter, the ‘nu-meat’ pioneer, who became a celebrity chef in the late 2020s.

Back to top.

The red book on display is an example of how people in 2013 imagined our diets might look today. As society sought ways to reduce meat consumption, some people looked to technology for the answer. In the early days of in-vitro meat, this cookbook – containing fifty recipes for lab-grown meat – was written by a team of Dutch designers. Some of the dishes eventually caught on: the ‘painless foie gras’, for example, is now favoured by gourmands, and of course there are IKEA’s infamous basement-grown ‘magic meatballs’.

Other dishes were less of a success…such as the in-vitro kebab. Many restaurants experimented with it, this spinning spear of never-ending meat – it was one hell of a weird business model! Initially, customers were apparently repulsed by this ‘living’ meat being harvested right in front of their eyes. But ‘nu-meat’ became widely adopted and made serious mitigation gains around the world. Kebab shops were crucial popularisers.  (There are always urban myths of some still selling ‘trad kebabs’).

Let’s not recall the notorious ‘failed’ 2020s campaign for ‘Celebrity Burgers’. A start-up claimed it would harvest biopsy myoblast cells from public figures and grow them into meat in bioreactors. They managed to sign some famous people up, but not even TikTok could sell these to the public. Nu-meat haggis suppers though? Delicious.

Back to top.

The plastic-free movement was spreading across the world in the 2010s, and these steel water bottles could be found everywhere. However, during the steel crisis in the 2030s, brought on by the closure of polluting blast furnaces, objects like these grew more and more controversial. There just wasn’t enough scrap metal to replace the virgin steel made from iron ore. So, campaigners sought to remedy this by collecting ‘unnecessary’ steel. This popular movement, which began in Sweden was dubbed ‘Circular Steel’ and used the water bottle as a symbol for all the non-essential steel products in circulation.

And there were plenty of consumer products made from steel. Did you younger people know that they once had ‘filing cabinets’ made from steel? What a waste! This was not only due to steel’s strength but also its aesthetic properties. Luckily, most of these objects were collected and recycled into infrastructure and turbines during the 2030s.

Why all this steel antagonism? During the fossil era, steel was one of the largest sources of emissions since you had to burn coal or natural gas to reduce the iron ore. Alternatives to the blast furnace were, however, developed during the transition years. The Swedish company HYBRIT was one of the first companies to develop hydrogen-based steel-making and others developed electrolysis for iron ore. Now that these production modes are being ramped up the industry is hoping for a steel renaissance, and this bottle – made from decarbonised steel – is making a comeback.

Back to top.

These ‘frequent flyer cards’ were used to *encourage* aviation! The more you flew, the more perks you got. Cheaper flights, skip the line at the gate or sit in a special lounge, eat steak and down some bubbly while you wait to lift off into the clouds. To many, being a frequent flyer meant you were an important, high status member of society.

One of these cards belonged to a female climate scientist at Glasgow University. Originally from India, she often crossed continents by plane to visit her family. With important academic conferences and fieldwork added to that, she and many researchers like her flew up to six times more than the average person. This just didn’t sit right with her, so she decided to radically reduce her flying and as a result became a champion of the 2020s ‘flyingless’ movement among researchers. A few years after her decision she has lived a life free from flying. She ‘saw’ her family less often, but video conferencing became much better. Eventually, in the 2040s new ‘clean powered’ trans-oceanic ship services appeared, and intercontinental travel entered a new age altogether.

Back to top.

This object is made from perhaps the most iconic material of the fossil age: plastic. This LEGO is on loan to us from the local toy library since we were keen to show LEGO made from oil. As more and more parents engaged with climate change, they considered their children playing with materials made by companies who they now saw as complicit in endangering their kids’ futures. LEGO became controversial. In Denmark, at Lego headquarters, parents and activists protested outside LEGO’s shops and offices in a move that almost drove the company to bankruptcy. Images of children dressed in white gowns, with their hands covered in thick black sludge engaged the entire Danish nation and sparked similar protests elsewhere. In the end, the government had to step in to support LEGO in their transition to bio-based plastics. Today, they remain in place – especially since they started renting out their sustainable LEGO-sets. Please go ahead and feel it, it’s supposed to feel the same as the pieces that are made today.

Back to top.

We all know the origin story of Greta Thunberg’s Skolstrejk för klimatet. What began as a lone campaign of defiance in 2018 sparked a worldwide movement of schoolchildren in the Fridays For Future (FFF) campaigns. They struck for what they rightly viewed as a deep generational injustice being enacted on them, who would inherit the cumulative effects of a high-carbon culture created by a generation who seemed reluctant to correct the mess they had made. The strikes did not dissipate after the Covid19 pandemic as was expected, but came roaring back and intensified against what was viewed as inadequate efforts by governments and companies on climate to rebuild in accordance with mitigation protocols. Fridays became Thursdays became Wednesdays. By the late 20s, with action still lagging behind demands, the campaign mushroomed into a multi-dimensional movement involving organisations and individuals from all across civil society.

The efforts of these children can be said to have brought politicians to the table in ways their parent’s generation failed to manage. Their courage was celebrated with a permanent slot for climate literacy on the school curriculum. A UN resolution was ratified in 2024, building on the 2021 UN Child Rights Committee’s historic resolution to include ‘unborn generations’ in all projects, large and small that were deemed to have potential climate impacts. States could be held responsible for any carbon emissions on the rights of present and future children within and outside their territory.

This image and the placard are from the Glasgow Fridays For Future March for the Climate which took place in September 2019.

Back to top.

One of the most iconic symbols of petroculture in Scotland was the M8 motorway. The busiest in the country, it cut a smoggy and traffic-choked swathe through most of Glasgow. Glaswegians tended to ‘unsee’ it, but it became increasingly difficult to ignore as a capacitor for ongoing carbonisation. Schoolchildren researching it now are amazed that it went straight through the centre of the city and over the river, one of the most unusual and historically controversial aspects of this now defunct highway. A campaign, ‘Replace the M8’ (@ReplacetheM8) began in 2021. It made demands which seemed ambitious then but became increasingly feasible and desirable, uniting many inner-city communities. Courageous ‘sit-down’ protests (and counter protests from neo-petrolheads) occupied the road as the campaign became ever more voluble. It proved a test of the seriousness of the Glasgow Council’s published plans for an ‘active travel’, velo-city.

To watch these images now is to realise the extent of our addiction to private automobiles, one that needed serious efforts and political courage to overcome. The motorway’s transformation to forested landscape, light rail, bike commuter routes, affordable housing zones and extensive city parkland is now looked upon as one of the best achievements of Glasgow’s eventual transition. People keep tiny sections of the M8 now as Scottish football fans once kept sections of Wembley turf in the famous victory of 1977! The latter was sacrosanct, but in the struggle against global heating the former was unhallowed ground.

Back to top.

A crucial front in the transition to zero emission society was domestic heating and cooking. Natural Gas seemed to occupy a less visible terrain than oil in the argument to ditch fossil fuels. This was partly due to the strategies and orientations of the global environmental campaign and the cultural resonance of oil, but gas dependency was very high indeed, in Scotland and throughout Europe. Oil and Gas companies cited the need to maintain gas infrastructures, mobilizing the rather disingenuous term ‘orderly transition’ as a means to generate support for continued extraction. Repeat efforts to replace and retrofit housing (from new insulation to heat pump technologies) were hampered by lack of funding and infrastructural shortcomings. Eventually, however, this was viewed by a majority as a remaining ‘big’ problem and now we think of gas cooking and boilers as we do of a home coal fire.

Back to top.

As noted elsewhere in this exhibition, petroleum ran deep in our veins in the 20th century and nowhere was this more deeply felt and registered than the private automobile. Since Henry Ford’s Model T first rolled out of the factory in 1908, our love for the combustion engine and all its attendant infrastructures grew beyond any reasonable capacity. By the early 21st century, the world found itself at a crossroads: more cars than ever clogged up streets everywhere, and the uptick in ownership of SUVs presented a weird affront to our growing emissions literacy. The ‘SUV wars’ of 2023-4 came at a time when we were already reconfiguring our relationship to the combustion engine and, indeed, to car ownership in general. Electric cars and battery development eventually overcame what was called ‘range anxiety’ and the transition was quick when it came. But electro-mobility was not without its problems, infrastructurally and politically, with the required components meaning unethical mineral mining in other places of the world. Many people, especially in cities gave up private cars – possibly forever.

This object is part of the rear exhaust from a motorbike purchased in 2019. It is hard to believe now, in our cities free of the fumes and noise of 20th century engines, that we endured the simple fact that we would walk around while such exhausts belched out pollution all around us. And yet, they still hold a residual nostalgia among old petrolheads, who mourn the lack of REV and thunder in these new electric ‘hogs’!

Back to top.

In 1939, the first nylon stocking was displayed at the World’s Fair as an object of desire; as the Smithsonian Museum put it in its online magazine, the nylon stocking changed the world: ‘one humble pair of lady’s stockings in the Smithsonian collections represents nothing less than the dawn of a new age – the age of synthetic.’

But while in 2019, the nylon stocking could be celebrated with a kind of nostalgia, by 2049 the tale of the seductive nature of synthetic clothing had become almost entirely cautionary. How did this happen?

By the turn of the 21st century, nylon tights had fallen out of fashion, but synthetic clothing had taken hold across the board in the development of functional technical clothing of all kinds. And again, this worked with the ideas of luxury, functionality and desire – just as, in their day, the nylon stocking had done.

However, there were signs of dissatisfaction with these forms of clothing as reports began to emerge of pollution of the seas with microfibres that, in turn, entered the food chain. This led to a broader concern with the kinds of plastics that were to be found in the human body.

Back to top.