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    • About This Report
    • Guide to the Report
    • Report Credits
    • Companion Podcast
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    • About this Report
    • Guide to this Report
    • OVERVIEW
    • Physical Science
    • 2. Climate Trends
    • 3. Earth Systems Processes
    • National Topics
    • 4. Water
    • 5. Energy
    • 6. Land
    • 7. Forests
    • 8. Ecosystems
    • 9. Coasts
    • 10. Oceans
    • 11. Agriculture
    • 12. Built Environment
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    • 16. Indigenous Peoples
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    • 21. Northeast
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    • Responses
    • 31. Adaptation
    • 32. Mitigation
    • Focus On
    • F1. Compound Events
    • F2. Western Wildfires
    • F3. COVID-19 and Climate Change
    • F4. Risks to Supply Chains
    • F5. Blue Carbon
    • Appendices
    • A1. Process
    • A2. Information Quality
    • A3. Scenarios and Datasets
    • A4. Indicators
    • A5. Glossary

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  • Art × Climate
  • NCA Atlas
  • EN ESPAÑOL
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Fifth National Climate Assessment
Art × Climate Gallery

Art × Climate is the first art gallery to be featured in the National Climate Assessment. The US Global Change Research Program issued a call for art with the understanding that, together, art and science move people to greater understanding and action. The call received more than 800 submissions, and the final collection features the work of 92 artists. Their work, which represents all 10 NCA regions, offers a powerful depiction of climate change in the United States—its causes and impacts, as well as the strength of our collective response.

View Award Winners View Full Collection

Jurors: Jessicca Allen (North Carolina State University),  Lacey Baradel (National Science Foundation / National Portrait Gallery),  Allison Crimmins (US Global Change Research Program),  Bradley Dean (Department of Homeland Security),  William L. Fox (Center for Art and Environment, Nevada Museum of Art),  Jack Heide (Federal Emergency Management Agency),  Valentine Kass (National Science Foundation, retired),  Allyza R. Lustig (US Global Change Research Program / ICF),  Anais Reyes (The Climate Museum),  Mika Tosca (School of the Art Institute of Chicago).

The artworks and associated artists' statements are not Assessment products and do not necessarily represent the views of the authors or USGCRP. Each artwork depicted in the Art x Climate gallery is the property of the artist and protected by copyright law. USGCRP has permission to use the artwork in conjunction with the National Climate Assessment. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of this artwork without the artist’s permission is prohibited.

Award Winners

Colorful pencil drawing shows a landscape featuring a stream, mountains, cliffs, trees, cacti, wildflowers, elk, wolf, antelope, salmon, tortoise, hawk, bees, and other flora and fauna, as well as two humans.
Taelyn B.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Endangered West
(2022, colored pencil)
Artist’s statement: My drawing depicts 11 endangered species and their different ecosystems found in the Western United States. The most difficult challenge was making this piece cohesive, even across different habitats that normally wouldn’t be found together. I live in Boise, Idaho, and am surrounded by wild places that I consider part of my home. I want to ensure that these ecosystems are protected. I hope viewers come away with an appreciation for our Western wild places and the importance of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems threatened by climate change and habitat loss.
Watercolor shows blades of a wind turbine, a hydropower dam, solar panels, corn stalks, and white stacks emitting clouds of steam.
Katharine Cartwright
Alternatives
(2022, watercolor)
Artist’s statement: “Alternatives” is an aesthetic interpretation of five viable alternatives to petroleum-based energy: biofuel, wind turbines, geothermal plants, hydroelectric dams, and solar panels. The interconnection of the symbols used for each energy source in the design emphasizes a combined approach to a long-term feasible solution. Environmentally friendly materials used in the creation of this painting include cotton paper and water-based pigments.
Linocut print in black and white shows a spiral pattern with an eye at the center surrounded by strips that show shoes and sandals, wind-blown palm trees, waves and water, and buildings.
Simona Clausnitzer
In the Eye of the Storm
(2020, linocut print)
Artist’s statement: This piece illustrates the lived experiences of hurricanes, specifically Hurricane Maria. As the climate continues to change, catastrophic storms are expected to become more severe in the Caribbean region. Mirroring a local memorial, shoes follow the road to calmer places. The piece is a composite overlay of three linocuts depicting the storm itself, the infrastructural impacts, and the human impacts. It can be interpreted literally, as a hurricane and its numerous effects, or symbolically: watching ourselves twist in a storm system of inequities that caused Puerto Rico to be without power for as many as 328 days after Maria. The impacts are still being felt years later. As the eye of the storm, we witness all.
Aerial photo shows the intersection of two two-lane roads, which has been painted with a large numeral “7” in black and white against a blue background.
Xavier Cortada
Elevation Drive: 7 Feet Above Sea Level
(2018, water-based paint on asphalt)
Artist’s statement: This street intersection mural in Pinecrest, Florida depicts the location’s elevation above sea level. Painted intersections, coupled with Underwater Markers (elevation yard signs) that residents place in their front yards, make the issue of climate change impossible to ignore. Mapping the topography of their community, neighbors reveal an alarming reality: declining property values, increased flood insurance costs, failing septic tanks, compromised infrastructure, climate gentrification, and collapsing ecosystems. The socially engaged art work is aimed at revealing the vulnerability of coastal communities to rising seas, sparking climate conversations, and catalyzing civic engagement.
Gouache painting shows a young person with lighter skin and long hair dressed in red tennis shoes, jeans, and a sleeveless t-shirt sitting on the floor and drawing in a spiral-bound notebook. Behind the figure is a painting of a factory complex spewing smoke, while in front are broken green crayons on the floor.
Amelia K.
Youth Entry, Grade 10
Cautionary tale
(2023, gouache)
Artist’s statement: In my piece, I focused on air pollution and fossil fuels. I showed factories pumping toxic gasses and fuels into the air. I also included a figure drawing childlike images of factors that have or will be destroyed by climate change. Broken green crayons symbolize the destruction of nature as climate change worsens. This is a completely possible future for our planet, with bumblebee death tolls rising due to climate change and clean water becoming inaccessible for the less fortunate. Without action this problem will only worsen.
Oil painting depicts human figures crouching, sitting, or kneeling below water level, surrounded by vegetation, with an orange sky and dark clouds above.
James Keul
Fish in Troubled Waters
(2013, oil on canvas)
Artist’s statement: This painting is about the effects of human-caused climate change and sea level rise on island and coastal populations. The people trapped within the composition, like fish in an aquarium, are disproportionately affected but not responsible for their circumstance. This piece was inspired by the noticeable effects of climate change in Polynesia. I witnessed eroding coastal areas and a reduced ability to provide agricultural subsistence due to saltwater infiltration when I returned to Samoa after 25 years.
Quilted fabric and embroidery in shades of purple, orange, and brown show a forest of burnt trees surrounded by smoke and burning embers. Superimposed on this scene are two areas of contrasting fabric and thread: one in oranges, yellows, and browns depicting the forest as it burns and the other in greens, oranges, and yellows showing the roots of the trees and fallen leaves.
Ree Nancarrow
Spruce Smoke
(2012, quilted fiber)
Artist’s statement: Fire is a critical factor influencing the ecology of the northern Boreal Forest. Wildfires remove the duff and soil layers that insulate permafrost, and as the permafrost melts it releases methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This quilt depicts a flashback of burning spruce trees inset into bare ground and dead trees smoldering after a fire.
Pencil drawing shows a globe, with the top half in bright greens and blues and featuring solar panels and wind turbines, and the bottom half obscured by a yellowish haze, with cars and factories spewing smoke. In the lower half a large human hand holds an eraser that is clearing up the pollution, while in the top half another hand is drawing with a pencil.
Ritika S.
Youth Entry, Grade 8
Redrawing The Earth
(2023, colored pencil)
Artist’s statement: In my art, I try to convey that we can help reverse the effects of climate change. One hand is erasing the pollution caused by industrialization the world over, and the other is redrawing actions to restore the Earth’s beauty. I have always tried to help out the Earth, through stream clean ups and more. I hope people learn from my art that they can help change the world by just doing simple things like driving less, not littering, and maybe even setting up solar panels or wind turbines. The effects of climate change are only in our hands, so we should do whatever we can to help.
A photograph shows a person with lighter skin wearing a white coverall and blue gloves while holding a narrow cylinder of ice parallel to the ground. Extensive hand-written notes on ice-core research are superimposed on the photograph.
Ian van Coller
Dr. Avila Holding Cut Antarctic Icecore
(2017, pigment print on washi with annotations)
Artist’s statement: Climate change has compressed and conflated human and geologic time scales, making it essential to find ways to conceptualize “deep time.” This work seeks to make notions of deep time comprehensible through visual exploration of glacier ice, as well as other earthly archives. This project includes intimate collaborations with paleoclimatologists by having them annotate directly onto my photographic prints — a contemporary taxonomy of ice and climate. This portrait was photographed in a cold/clean lab at Montana State University. The ice shown is 10,827 (left side) to 10,833 years old.
Site-specific environmental artwork features a jagged pattern of red string stretched between nails inserted in a patch of brown, cracked earth, resembling surgical stitches.
Tammy West
Keep it Together
(2021, site-specific environmental art)
Artist’s statement: Texas and much of the Western United States have been experiencing climate change-induced severe drought. This site-specific piece focuses on our collective climate grief. “Keep It Together” conceptually wills climate change and the drought to end by literally tying cracked earth back together. I wanted this piece to convey the desperate situation that we are in by mimicking surgical sutures or stitches with red string and nails. If we must resort to tying our world back together, we have nothing.

Full Collection

Acrylic painting in blue, gray, and yellow shows a view from below of a whale entangled in a long rope.
Ananya A.
Youth Entry, Grade 9
A Desperate Ocean
(2023, acrylic)
Artist's statement: The North Atlantic right whale is a critically endangered whale that inhabits the east coast waters of the United States. Human activities and climate change have driven down their numbers. I hope this piece will be a cry for help, something that will leave people with a sense of urgency. I also wanted to bring hope; the whale is escaping the entanglements. The sorrowful situation of the North Atlantic right whales can only be solved by us, humans, and if we all commit to it, I believe we can do it.
Photographic triptych shows curving tree trunks and branches, with only a few brown leaves visible.
Jenny Helbraun Abramson
Oak Forest, Eighteen Months After the Fire (triptych)
(2022, digital photography)
Artist's statement: The 2017 Tubbs Fire traumatized my home community, Sonoma County, California, with the breathtaking speed of its spread. Dozens of lives were lost and more than 5,000 homes. Over the following three years, we experienced three more major wildfires. Once the burn areas reopened, I began to record the state of our beloved oak woodlands and my shock at what fire left behind. Recurrent disasters, including ongoing drought, record-breaking heat spells, and unusually heavy winter rains, have wrought a new sense of fragility and responsibility after our naivete was crushed.
Oil painting shows a person with darker skin wearing an orange t-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap, standing on an urban street that is out of scale, with the roofs of two-story houses reaching about to knee level.
Ellen Anderson
Cheryl
(2021, oil on canvas)
Artist's statement: Cheryl is a very real person in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She works at a social services non-profit and is a member of our gay community. I painted her to show her confidence and triumph over urban challenges. This painting depicts the density of urban life and the spirit of the individual in it. The power of the individual, for climate change, social change, and personal change is embodied in this painting.
Woodcut shows dark rocky cliffs and a white glacier descending into a blue-gray body of water.
Todd Anderson
Andrews Glacier: ROMO, The Last Glacier
(2021, woodcut on washi)
Artist's statement: For over a decade I have endeavored to tackle one single question: in what ways can my artistic practice contribute to larger discussions and actions that address the climate crisis? This artwork is part of a larger project that documents the last remaining (and rapidly retreating) glaciers of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The artwork insists that climate breakdown is categorical while beauty remains. It speaks to our contemporary moment and aims to help future generations understand the challenges we faced in the early 21st century.
Photograph depicts an art installation in a grassy field with high-rise buildings in the background. Artwork consists of dozens of slender white rods that hold small translucent discs in shades of purple and pink.
Carolina Aragon
High Tide
(2016, dichroic acrylic, fiberglass)
Artist's statement: High Tide was a temporary art installation inspired by Boston’s original marsh landscape to visualize projected flooding due to sea level rise. The installation represented future flood levels as a marsh of color-changing circles moving around vertical rods. High Tide is part of a series of temporary installations designed to engage the public with the science of climate change through unexpected moments of wonder. Placed in public spaces, the artworks provide site-specific information about flooding impacts through non-threatening embodied experiences.
Colorful pencil drawing shows a landscape featuring a stream, mountains, cliffs, trees, cacti, wildflowers, elk, wolf, antelope, salmon, tortoise, hawk, bees, and other flora and fauna, as well as two humans.
Taelyn B.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Endangered West
(2022, colored pencil)
Artist's statement: My drawing depicts 11 endangered species and their different ecosystems found in the Western United States. The most difficult challenge was making this piece cohesive, even across different habitats that normally wouldn’t be found together. I live in Boise, Idaho, and am surrounded by wild places that I consider part of my home. I want to ensure that these ecosystems are protected. I hope viewers come away with an appreciation for our Western wild places and the importance of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems threatened by climate change and habitat loss.
Digital collage shows cars and pedestrians on an urban street lined with high-rise buildings. Oversized foliage from tropical houseplants appears to be sprouting from the buildings’ windows, balconies, and fire escapes.
Jessica Beshears
Concrete Jungle
(2023, digital collage)
Artist's statement: Battling climate change will require a radically imaginative perspective on the world around us. What would it look like to create fully biophilic additions to buildings that already exist? How many jobs could be created through the planning and upkeep of a green city? How would gardens on every balcony and rooftop benefit people in food deserts? I used photos of common house plants tucked into an image of 30th Street and 5th Avenue in New York City for a fantastical view of a concrete jungle.
A watercolor shows a landscape with brown grasses, gnarled leafless trees, and a grayish-white river. A red sun rises against a sky of blue-gray clouds, while birds fly through the air and float on the river.
Tanya Beyer
Ice-burst in a Ghostmarsh
(2022, watercolor)
Artist's statement: This artwork depicts the meltdown of traditional northern winters' icy streams and lakes. The sun rises, heat trapped by cloud cover. The river forms a flooding current, invading an abandoned building. Red-throated loons, normally migrants south from the Arctic, ride the current. Remnants of swamp trees, common in the boreal bogs of the Upper Midwest, pose themselves like goblins, totems of the past, part of the region's lingering character. I work in watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, and ink, often taking weather into account to create a mood.
Mixed-media artwork features many small dabs of color, primarily blue and white but with areas of green, red, and orange at center and bottom.
Ellen Blum
Water Painting
(2021, mixed media on watercolor paper)
Artist's statement: When the pandemic hit, pools closed, and I took up open-water swimming. I started to feel connected to nature in a new way and began a series about ‘mostly water,' and what it means to be human – and sentient. Aquatic environments have since been the focus of my practice. I think about how nature informs our lives as a species, as well as on a personal, soul level. I started using water from oceans, lakes, rivers, and harbors in my color washes, as a symbol of life, resiliency, and renewal.
Oil painting shows a reservoir of blue-green water between brown hills lacking in vegetation. A prominent light-colored 'bathtub ring' is visible above the water line, indicating that the reservoir once held far more water. Two narrow, human-made tower structures rise from the water in the foreground.
Jon Bradham
Droughts Edge Illuminated
(2021, oil on linen)
Artist's statement: This painting shows the beauty of the huge built environment and the colors and forms of nature. It also shows the stark problem of drought and overuse of water as populations grow, particularly in areas that are not predisposed to large human cities and agriculture. The bone-like wall of the shrinking lake should be a wakeup call to us all.
Multimedia work with photos and embroidery shows vine-covered buildings, a train with tanker cars crossing a bridge, a human figure walking on the street below, and a blue sky largely obscured by clouds and smoke in shades of white, gray, and black.
Diane Bronstein
Fear St. Pt. 1.
(2022, original photos, embroidery floss, stretched canvas)
Artist's statement: I’m intrigued by the overlooked public spaces: alleys, parking lots and intersections are spaces that could originate from any city. In this work, I took images of these places and collaged them into a street scene. Although the buildings, curbs, and streets are what we associate with normal life, they’re off-kilter. I use thick, dimensional embroidery in bright colors to add plants, rocks, and sky. Eventually, nature will win this battle, but we may not be here to enjoy it.
Infrared photography composite shows an industrial complex, including stacks emitting smoke or steam, set amid a hilly, forested landscape in which the trees are pinkish-red in color.
Casey Lance Brown
Jackson County Industry
(2022, infrared photography composite)
Artist's statement: Originally trained as a landscape architect, I rework abandoned sites, invasive species zones and decaying ruins as a way of navigating human folly. Individual works juxtapose something highly artificial with something organic, and/or something jarring with something reassuring. Forged from multiple medium format images, this scene of industry in a forested, mountainous area combines landscape visualization techniques (infrared sensors) with more traditional light photography (dodge/burn, compositing) to bring out atmospheric details and place the manmade and vegetation in high contrast.
Oil painting shows four views of the same glacial area, with less ice and more open water as the images progress from left to right.
Diane Burko
Grinnell Mt. Gould Quadtych
(2009, oil on canvas)
Artist's statement: This work portrays Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park, Montana in four time periods between 1920 and 2006, with the glacier losing mass in each painting. The piece considers the marks that humanity leaves on the landscape, reflecting the impact of industrial and colonial activity on those same landscapes. While these paintings deal with impending climate catastrophe, rather than lingering in dystopia they celebrate the sublimity of the landscape by honoring the intricate geological and political webs that shape the identity of a place.
Watercolor shows blades of a wind turbine, a hydropower dam, solar panels, corn stalks, and white stacks emitting clouds of steam.
Katharine Cartwright
Alternatives
(2022, watercolor)
Artist's statement: “Alternatives” is an aesthetic interpretation of five viable alternatives to petroleum-based energy: biofuel, wind turbines, geothermal plants, hydroelectric dams, and solar panels. The interconnection of the symbols used for each energy source in the design emphasizes a combined approach to a long-term feasible solution. Environmentally friendly materials used in the creation of this painting include cotton paper and water-based pigments.
Linocut print in black and white shows a spiral pattern with an eye at the center surrounded by strips that show shoes and sandals, wind-blown palm trees, waves and water, and buildings.
Simona Clausnitzer
In the Eye of the Storm
(2020, linocut print)
Artist's statement: This piece illustrates the lived experiences of hurricanes, specifically Hurricane Maria. As the climate continues to change, catastrophic storms are expected to become more severe in the Caribbean region. Mirroring a local memorial, shoes follow the road to calmer places. The piece is a composite overlay of three linocuts depicting the storm itself, the infrastructural impacts, and the human impacts. It can be interpreted literally, as a hurricane and its numerous effects, or symbolically: watching ourselves twist in a storm system of inequities that caused Puerto Rico to be without power for as many as 328 days after Maria. The impacts are still being felt years later. As the eye of the storm, we witness all.
Graphite on paper drawing in black and white shows a wind turbine against a cloudy sky.
Margaret Colarelli
Monument
(2017, graphite on paper)
Artist's statement: “Monument” was inspired by a foggy drive along stretches of farmland. Striking, modern wind turbines are embedded in fields, hovering behind old houses and barns, jutting out from behind trees, lining highways, and pairing with the power lines they feed. They have changed the lived experience of farmers who now supply a vital source of energy along with the crops they raise. I hope to attune the viewer to see this changing landscape as hopeful progress. “Monument” honors the power and grace of these important sources of renewable energy.
Painting in watercolor, charcoal, and gunpowder residue shows an abstract pattern with blotches of black, gray, white, yellow, green, and pink.
Michele Colburn
Where There's Smoke
(2021, watercolors, gunpowder residue, charcoal on archival paper)
Artist's statement: In the summer of 2021, I created a work Where There's Smoke while wildfires raged uncontrolled in California. I have lived in Colorado and Arizona in my life and am aware of such natural events, but also know that those of late are more dangerous and larger due to climate change. It was devastation that surpassed anything I had witnessed in my lifetime.
Yarn is woven into round flower- or coral-like shapes in shades of (from top left to bottom right) purple, blue, orange, green, yellow, and white, against a black background.
Constance Collins
Coral Conundrum: Dead or Alive
(2023, handmade paper, upcycled warp yarn remnants)
Artist's statement: Coral reefs are being threatened globally from climate change, unsustainable fishing, and land-based pollution. This piece recalls coral reefs and their inhabitants. As reefs deteriorate, they lose their vibrant color and their ability to provide nutrients and shelter to thousands of marine species. Here, the gradation from color to monochrome represents the bleaching that occurs as coral dies. We need to protect these crucial ecosystems, or we lose them. I used upcycled remnant warp yarns for the coral clusters and created handmade paper.
Aerial photo shows the intersection of two two-lane roads, which has been painted with a large numeral “7” in black and white against a blue background.
Xavier Cortada
Elevation Drive: 7 Feet Above Sea Level
(2018, water-based paint on asphalt)
Artist's statement: This street intersection mural in Pinecrest, Florida depicts the location’s elevation above sea level. Painted intersections, coupled with Underwater Markers (elevation yard signs) that residents place in their front yards, make the issue of climate change impossible to ignore. Mapping the topography of their community, neighbors reveal an alarming reality: declining property values, increased flood insurance costs, failing septic tanks, compromised infrastructure, climate gentrification, and collapsing ecosystems. The socially engaged art work is aimed at revealing the vulnerability of coastal communities to rising seas, sparking climate conversations, and catalyzing civic engagement.
Photographic diptych shows, in the top panel, an aerial view of a glacier and, in the bottom panel, a top view of a blueberry plant with ripe fruit and green, yellow, and red leaves. Words in English and the Tlingit language are superimposed on the images.
Katie Ione Craney
sít’ // kanat’a
(2023, silver foil, photo transparencies)
Artist's statement: Glaciers sing. Blueberries listen. Informed by the work of Julie Cruikshank and Dr. Janelle Marie Baker, this piece considers how place and beings are defined, and seeks collective action towards equitable, livable futures. Embedded underneath the images are translations of “glacier” and “blueberry” from English to Lingít Yoo X̲ʼatángi, the language of my home in Lingít Aaní, also known as Southeast Alaska. As a non-Native living within these lands, learning the Lingít language is a step towards decolonizing. Definitions come from the Tlingit Dictionary, edited by X̲ʼunei Lance Twitchell.
Oil painting depicts an aerial view of a landscape with row crops and forest in shades of green, brown, white, and gray.
Kelly Curl
Deforestation
(2023, oil paint)
Artist's statement: I record the landscape through paintings, drawings, photography, and mixed media, highlighting landscape form, process, texture, and natural patterns at varying scales. This work illustrates an aerial version of deforestation. Forests are home to wildlife, significant carbon banks, controls for flooding and erosion, and a source of filtration and clean air. Land use is a difficult topic, as farming is critically important to feed our growing population.
Watercolor depicts underwater scene with octopus, jellyfish, coral, and aquatic plants.
Olivia D.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Underwater Watercolor
(2023, watercolor)
Artist's statement: The idea behind this specific painting is to show the beauty and vibrancy of our ever-deteriorating oceans. I was inspired by the beautiful colors and livelihood of our oceans. The fluidity of movement, saturated colors, and detailed patterns all draw inspiration from familiar underwater scenery. The purpose of this piece is truly to inspire people to protect what is beautiful. I myself learned how important the oceans are to me, and I hope that respect can be reflected to the rest of the public through my artwork.
Watercolor shows a crab among rocks on the seafloor.
Carolina D.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Underwater Watercolor
(2023, watercolor)
Artist's statement: I was inspired by crabs because they're always seen as aggressive creatures, when really they're simple creatures just trying to get by like everyone else in life. I hope that people will learn that these animals have lives too, they're so complex and I'm sure they have thought processes just like humans do but we'll never know. I learned that all life is beautiful and deserves to be protected because we all take granted of how animals and how much Earth provides for us.
Fiber artwork features linear, mesh-like, and circular patterns in shades of (from top left to bottom right) dark green, pale green, yellow, and blue.
Pat DaRif
Coastal Bloom II
(2020, fiber)
Artist's statement: In this piece I use paper lamination, dyeing, painting, flour paste resist, screen printing, and stitching to create work about human relationships with the earth. I live on the western edge of the Lake Erie watershed where fertilizer runoff from farms and lawns has resulted in the development of huge algae blooms on the lake. To me, these blooms can appear eerily beautiful at times, but they pose a serious danger to the life of the lake. This problem is an issue in many places throughout the country.
Acrylic painting shows a polar bear in a snowy landscape looking toward a distant cruise ship, which is shown against a yellowish sky.
Pia De Girolamo
Invasion
(2020, acrylic on canvas)
Artist's statement: My painting depicts a polar bear in the Arctic viewing a distant cruise ship. I was on such a ship, visiting the Arctic Circle in 2019. The polar bear's look is wondering and poignant; the cruise ship seems innocent, but it represents another human incursion into this place of beauty. Climate change has already affected the area; the ice that allows the polar bear to travel and find food is shrinking. Bear and boat are on opposite sides in this painting. We need to be on the same side as the bear.
Photograph shows a closeup of a long-legged wading bird with pink feathers standing in still water that reflects its image.
Pamela DeChellis
Reflections in Pink
(2022, digital photography)
Artist's statement: Early in the morning at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina, I found myself alone with this beautiful spoonbill, who was gently wading and preening in the morning light. Traditionally the spoonbill is most common in coastal Florida, Texas, and parts of Louisiana. Recently, we have seen spoonbills expand their range into South Carolina, in part because of climate change. As more northern areas get warmer they 'flock' to these areas. As the sea level rises, the more southern waters also get too deep for them to forage.
Carbon residue on muslin shows the word “paradise” in gray capital letters against a black background.
Cara Despain
it doesn't look like paradise anymore (Camp Fire 2018)
(2019, carbon residue from collected burnt debris on muslin)
Artist's statement: For the last four years, I’ve collected burnt debris from wildfires and fires in the urban-interface zone in the western United States. I use them to create “carbon paintings” that serve as markers of a changing climate and sustained forest mismanagement, existing in memoriam of the consequences of human habitation on the planet. The text is the location of the fire, in this case Paradise, CA. These pure black expanses of soot still smell of smoke and are meant to conceptually inhabit the lineage of landscape painting while conveying the new reality of western lands' spent/wrecked vistas and places.
Watercolor and acrylic drawing shows a fancy teacup, one side of which has fallen away to reveal an underwater ocean scene of three whales swimming below icebergs as three birds fly overhead.
Alyse Dietel
Fragility
(2023, pen, watercolor, acrylic)
Artist's statement: “Fragility” expresses the delicateness of our natural world and ecosystems. The vintage Heisey teacup, historically owned by the wealthy, represents how people have affected the environment for generations and continue to do so. Two of the whales are humpbacks, which in some cases are still endangered. The third whale is a North Atlantic right whale. North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered and are expected to become functionally extinct in just a few decades. Above the whales float several icebergs, which are spilling over the edge of the cup bit by bit. The earth is losing approximately 1.2 trillion tons of ice per year due to climate change.
Digital artwork shows a figure with long, dark hair and wearing an orange dress standing on a small patch of green near the edge of a dark-blue river or lake, on the surface of which is reflected a cityscape with many skyscrapers.
Snow Dietrich
Reflecting on What Could Be
(2023, digital art)
Artist's statement: As natural areas are replaced with human development, we are stealing from future generations the right and joy of feeling a connection to the natural world. This piece shows a girl yearning for the experience of exploring a waterway, but the cityscape reflected in the water suggests the reality in her environment is different. I hoped to not only convey a solemn feeling, but also the optimism of youth to imagine what could be.
Artwork of scanned weather charts and mixed media shows a three-dimensional surface assembled from cut-out pieces of papers printed with circular geometric patterns and colored in shades of black, blue, and gray.
Phyllis Ewen
Polar Melt
(2021, scanned weather charts, mixed media)
Artist's statement: In Polar Melt, I scanned charts and weather maps, altered them, and printed them digitally. These prints are then cut and reassembled to form imagined waterscapes that highlight the changing nature of our seas: rising waters and melting glaciers, the effects of global warming and human intervention. Although maps imply a viewer looking down at the landscape, I hope that the dimensional qualities of my images allow us to imagine ourselves within it and to inhabit the seas as another way of understanding.
Colorful oil painting shows a waterfall, stream, mountains, and sky with sea lion, sea otter, salmon, orca, wolves, deer, racoon, bear, bighorn sheep, and bald eagle.
Spencer Frazer
Stream Of Consciousness
(2020, oil on canvas)
Artist's statement: My painting depicts the results of human impact on nature and has us question what is and will be. The work bridges the literal and the imaginative, informed by Northwest Indigenous art, as well as that of other traditions. One of the underlying principles of the work is to create pieces where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Often in the background I use written language for viewers to decipher and interpret. I am fascinated by how the mind searches to recognize the familiar.
Photograph shows a flat, whitish-gray, sandy surface with many small circular depressions stretching to the horizon, above which is a pale blue sky with wispy white clouds.
Katelyn Garcia
The Dust We Will Breathe
(2022, inkjet print)
Artist's statement: The Dust We Will Breathe is a photograph of the drying lakebed of the Great Salt Lake, a graveyard of once underwater mounds made of microbial organisms. Human consumption is mostly to blame for the lake reaching historic lows, which is compounded by climate change and the west’s current megadrought. If no drastic changes in consumption are made, the lake will be gone in 5 years. Every day that more lakebed is exposed, we will breathe in more of its toxic dust.
Photograph shows a grassy green field bisected by a wide path of wood chips. Running down the middle of the path is a line of darker green vegetation in which are planted many small blue marking flags.
Linda Gass
The Living Shoreline Project
(2017-2023, juncus patens, wood chip mulch)
Artist's statement: The meandering line of dark green plants is a living art installation that marks the historical shoreline of San Francisco Bay at Cooley Landing, a former landfill site in East Palo Alto, CA. From 1932 to 1960, the wetlands were filled by a garbage dump, creating an artificial peninsula. Using maps from 1857 and present-day satellite images, the artist located the historical shoreline. Youth and adult volunteers joined her to plant a California native plant, Juncus patens, along this placement.
Watercolor monotype shows a horizontal wooden beam balanced atop a vertical beam, with three men hanging from each end of the horizontal beam and a seventh man sitting atop it at center. The background is an aerial view of ice floes on a body of water.
Jane Goldman
Teetering on the Edge
(2020, watercolor monotype)
Artist's statement: “Eco-anxiety” is an ongoing series of watercolor monotypes (2018-2023) that addresses global warming. Dark humor sets the tone, inspired by silent film era comedians. In this context the figures represent Everyman, experiencing ongoing, slow-motion, climate catastrophes. In various iterations in the series, the silent comedian is caught in a situation right before the worst occurs (the present), implying that it’s not the fall that hurts, it’s the sudden stop (the future). As an apocaloptimist, I hope the future proves less grim.
Acrylic painting shows an area of deep blue at top that fades to a strip of pale blue-white near the bottom, below which is a strip of pale brown.
Lindsy Halleckson
Sky Parameters: Carbon Monoxide
(2019, acrylic on canvas)
Artist's statement: My minimal paintings reference sky and weather. I find inspiration at the edge of day. The quiet, liminal, and changing space is full of possibility. Most recently, my work has been infused with atmospheric data. This piece depicts a subset of air quality data from Hennepin County, Minnesota, where I live and work. Using data from the 2014 State and County Emissions Sources published by the EPA, this piece portrays sources of Carbon Monoxide emissions, which are roughly: Mobile 89% (blue); Miscellaneous 6% (white); Fuel Combustion 5% (ocher).
Manipulated photographic image shows tree trunks and vegetation in shades of black, red, and orange.
Lisa Harrington
A Vision of Fire
(2023, digital)
Artist's statement: This piece, 'A Vision of Fire,' was created with several layered and manipulated photographs, the key one being a photo of healthy forest in Oregon in 2018. By layering it over flame and dust-colored photos, a view of the potential fate of the forest was achieved. This work follows several years of drought and catastrophic fire in the Pacific Northwest. It also follows my career as a geography professor, where I focused on human-environment relations, climate change, and rurality. This work connects such academic views with imagination and emotion.
Acrylic painting depicts an aerial view of an oceanside housing development, with many structures showing storm damage.
Joan Hart
After Irma
(2022, acrylic on canvas)
Artist's statement: This painting was inspired by aerial photos of damage in the Florida Keys following Hurricane Irma. As hurricanes become more powerful due to climate change, and as people continue to build along the coast in vulnerable areas, these scenes will repeat. My intention with this painting was to draw people in with strong colors and what seem, at a distance, to be abstract shapes. Upon closer look, the damaged houses, boats, and debris left in the wake of this horrendous storm become apparent. Can hope be found amidst disaster?
Mixed-media painting features a background with vertical stripes of alternating lighter and darker blues. Many undulating dashed lines stretch from left to right. From top to bottom, these lines are arranged in groups of white, yellow, orange, and red.
Dodd Holsapple
Reflections Series Blue Current
(2022, mixed medium acrylic paint on canvas)
Artist's statement: This piece combines rigid, measured definitions of space with the lush organic movements of nature. The Reflections Series speaks to issues such as ocean awareness, threatened species, and water temperatures. Ultimately, the piece seeks to amplify today's contemporary landscapes in crisis.
Beadwork features a blue background with designs in white, black, yellow, and red depicting human figures, clouds, lightning, wind, and more.
Lara A. Jacobs, Coral Avery, Kathryn Champagne, Rhode Grayson
The Seven Rs
(2022, beadworks)
Artist's statement: This beaded art piece represents the figures of a collaborative paper titled, 'Unsettling marine conservation: Disrupting manifest destiny-based conservation practices through the operationalization of Indigenous value systems.' Each section of the piece represents one of the “the seven R’s” of Indigenous value systems which is used to frame the paper: respect, relevancy, reciprocity, responsibility, rights, reconciliation through redistribution, and relationships. This framework underlines the need for marine conservation efforts to center Indigenous voices and futures and Tribal management of marine systems.
Black-and-white pencil drawing shows the face, shoulder, and one hand of a long-haired person who is lying in a grassy field near wildflowers beneath a partly cloudy sky.
Emaline K.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Sleeping Amongst the Flowers
(2022, ebony pencil)
Artist's statement: This drawing is a self-portrait. I created it to show the connection between humans and nature, and how it's all connected. She is sleeping in the grass, and as she lies there, her hair slowly turns into wildflowers. This slow transition from a human to grass and wildflowers shows how we coexist. I hope people will understand how humans are a part of nature, and that we need to do anything to protect it, because without nature we wouldn't be human.
Gouache painting shows a young person with lighter skin and long hair dressed in red tennis shoes, jeans, and a sleeveless t-shirt sitting on the floor and drawing in a spiral-bound notebook. Behind the figure is a painting of a factory complex spewing smoke, while in front are broken green crayons on the floor.
Amelia K.
Youth Entry, Grade 10
Cautionary tale
(2023, gouache)
Artist's statement: In my piece, I focused on air pollution and fossil fuels. I showed factories pumping toxic gasses and fuels into the air. I also included a figure drawing childlike images of factors that have or will be destroyed by climate change. Broken green crayons symbolize the destruction of nature as climate change worsens. This is a completely possible future for our planet, with bumblebee death tolls rising due to climate change and clean water becoming inaccessible for the less fortunate. Without action this problem will only worsen.
Black-and-white photograph shows a damaged one-story structure on pylons standing in the surf on a sandy seashore.
Daniel Kariko
Last Camp on Isle Derniere, Louisiana
(2017, photography)
Artist's statement: Louisiana is experiencing the highest rate of coastal erosion in America. Major storms, including Katrina and Rita in 2005, and Ida in 2021, have drastically changed the geography of Louisiana’s coast. Many of South Louisiana’s communities, including Indigenous Americans, Cajuns, and Asian Americans are affected by loss of natural resources, economic impact, and direct loss of property. People of Louisiana are closely defined by the landscape they inhabit. Yet every year, small local communities gradually sink into the wetlands. This subject is a proverbial “canary in the mine” for issues that affect the entire planet.
Color photograph shows a partly demolished two-story frame house with blue siding, its right half mostly gone, with a large yellow backhoe beside it.
Nathan Kensinger
Managed Retreat
(2015, photograph)
Artist's statement: Over the past decade, I have documented the first “managed retreat” from climate change and sea level rise in New York City, photographing and filming as three neighborhoods have been demolished and returned to nature. This body of work explores the sacrifices that are being made, as communities face the reality of increased flooding, erosion, and storm surges caused by climate change and sea level rise.
Oil painting depicts human figures crouching, sitting, or kneeling below water level, surrounded by vegetation, with an orange sky and dark clouds above.
James Keul
Fish in Troubled Waters
(2013, oil on canvas)
Artist's statement: This painting is about the effects of human-caused climate change and sea level rise on island and coastal populations. The people trapped within the composition, like fish in an aquarium, are disproportionately affected but not responsible for their circumstance. This piece was inspired by the noticeable effects of climate change in Polynesia. I witnessed eroding coastal areas and a reduced ability to provide agricultural subsistence due to saltwater infiltration when I returned to Samoa after 25 years.
A collage assembled from paint, paper, and pencil sketches shows a jumbled urban landscape.
Oxana Kovalchuk
Transcience
(2021, mixed media collage)
Artist's statement: My collage reflects our urban aesthetics and how small we feel inside a big city. To survive in an urban climate means to adapt to visual boundaries, noise, and low-quality air and to create a more human-friendly, green environment. I created this cardboard-based mixed media collage using paint, colored pencils, and decorative paper. My inspiration was Zaha Hadid’s architectural masterpieces - their unexpected curves and unconventional shapes. Like the refracted reflections of curved mirrors, space has ceased to be linear, offering an even greater variety of forms.
Charcoal drawing shows a close-up view of the bare trunk and several large branches of a tree.
Michael Krondl
Portrait of the Apocalypse 1
(2022, charcoal on paper)
Artist's statement: The subject of my work is our relationship to the natural world, as a society and as individuals, and has focused on rising temperatures that come with climate change. In the 'portraits' series I have turned to making drawings of burned forests, specifically in the form of life-sized 'portraits' of individual fire-ravaged trees that almost seem to return the viewer's stare. The drawings are based on detailed photographs taken in Mesa Verde National Park. Using burnt wood (charcoal) seems the only logical medium here.
Acrylic triptych shows three similar images with urban highrises in silhouette at bottom and backgrounds with patches of green, pink, yellow, and purple. The panels show different images in silhouette against the background: the left has an airplane and flying saucer; the center a godzilla-like creature; and the right an airplane, flying saucer, and two cows.
Maggie L.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Cleveland, Ohio
(2022, acrylic paint, gel pad print)
Artist's statement: 'Cleveland, Ohio' is a printmaking triptych that depicts Godzilla attacking the Cleveland skyline; to its sides are UFOs picking up cows and planes flying around. Godzilla is a good example of humans' effects on the environment. I hope that when people see my art they look into Godzilla like I did: it shows how not just with nuclear, but also with things like oil and coal burning we negatively impact the environment in many ways.
Colorful woodcut in black, green, yellow, and red shows a large house ablaze as a wildfire burns around it in a rugged mountain landscape.
Julia Lauer
california
(2020, paper, ink)
Artist's statement: 'california' is a five-layer reductive woodcut that depicts an immense blaze trailing from a mountain range to a burning house. The piece was born in response to the California wildfires. The contrast between the bright flames and the dark sky is representative of the dramatic change between El Niño and La Niña years, which have a cyclical influence on fire in the region. The burning house speaks to the impact wildfires have on people, while the burning plains and mountains comment on the effect fire has on the planet.
Digital aerial map of a coastal city features areas colored in yellow, red, and brown dots and white shading. Gray areas indicate land, and black areas indicate water. Intersecting lines extend beyond the coast. A pink locator icon off the coast at the bottom of the map is labeled “place not found: used to be Isle de Jean Charles.”
Changsong Li
Used To Be: 'Isle De Jean Charles'
(2023, digital)
Artist's statement: The Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe are widely recognized as having been displaced by climate change. Their home, the Isle de Jean Charles in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana is no longer habitable, and they are being forced to relocate. There has been a long history of relocation for people who face racial discrimination and deep economic inequality. Those groups are also usually the first to experience climate change. The map marks their former home and includes lines of gas and oil, population density, and elevation.
Photograph shows the face of a youth with darker skin peering out a window, which is reflecting a tree trunk and branches.
Jason Lindsey
Reflecting Forward No. 12
(2019, photography)
Artist's statement: This project was inspired by my 13-year-old son who asked about climate change and what the world will look like in the future. I had only murky visions of that future myself and could not give him a clear answer. As a father, I hated that I could not provide much clarity for my son and knew I needed to explore this idea with a photography project. These portraits explore the uncertain futures of the next generation that will be struck the hardest by the impacts of climate change.
Painting with newspaper collage shows a view from above of fallen leaves floating in a pool of water surrounded by river stones. On the leaves appear snippets from newspaper headlines addressing climate-related issues, with visible words including “emissions,” “residents flee,” “oil spill,” and “erosion.”
Taina Litwak
News Stream VI - Reflections
(2022, acrylic and newspaper collage on canvas)
Artist's statement: In January 2020 I began a series of paintings in acrylic and collaged newspaper. In this painting, I use deciduous forests, and their annual leaf fall, to document issues of the climate change and environmental damage we are causing. Each cut and painted leaf is a flash of content, a voice demanding our attention, only to drift away and be replaced by the next days’ urgent headlines, an unending stream. The stone below, slow to change, is juxtaposed against the transparent fluidity of the water and evanescent character of the leaves/bites of information.
Carved and painted wood sculpture shows small disks of dark-painted wood surrounding the tilted peak of a roof, giving the impression of a house mostly submerged in water.
George Lorio
Sea Rise
(2016, painted, scaled, carved, and constructed wood)
Artist's statement: Water supports life and can cause destruction. I grew up in New Orleans and worked in water-surged areas of Florida and south Texas where hurricanes result in widespread flooding. Even without a tropical storm, global warming is forcing inundations on coastal areas, which has become the norm. Climate change is occurring. The piece is composed of wooden water motifs surrounding a three-quarter scaled roof section of a house which alludes to a flooded neighborhood.
Watercolor shows an underwater scene with two manatees surrounded by fish above aquatic vegetation.
Amalija M.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Swimming With Manatees
(2023, watercolor)
Artist's statement: Manatees are aquatic animals that are often impacted by human activity. Whether it's interference by ships, fishing equipment, or even habitat destruction, they remain a threatened animal. I wanted to depict manatees in their usual habitat, peacefully swimming through the water. We should be taking steps in order to coexist with sea life, without causing them harm. We should be working to protect sea life, to respect their environments-- instead of damaging them. I hope that I can bring awareness to this issue, and inspire better appreciation for marine life.
Digital artwork, primarily in shades of gray, shows a child with lighter skin and long hair sitting on an urban sidewalk and looking down at yellow dandelions sprouting from a crack in a sidewalk. A beam of light from above illuminates the blossoms, and a standing teddy bear appears to be looking at the child. A sign reads “Sea Level Rise. Flood Control. +1-800-TRAGEDY.”
Silas M.
Youth Entry, Grade 11
Hope
(2023, digital)
Artist's statement: The urbanization of the modern world has led to a disconnect between people and nature. People find themselves living in isolation from each other and from their environments. Climate trends project more extreme weather. Environmental disasters such as sea level rise and forest fires alienate people from one another as they choose to use land to build concrete cities, and destroy ecosystems to protect their feelings of safety. Despite this, new generations bring hope for a unified humanity that craves natural landscapes and seeks out nature.
Collage-like artwork includes many small images of landscapes, buildings, humans, birds, and other animals.
Audrey Martin
The Way We Were
(2022, paper scraps, acrylic, charcoal, gouache)
Artist's statement: “The Way We Were” is a reflection on the connecting elements of the human species. As a climate-aware mental health care provider, it's clear to me that attending to the planet means attending to each other. I see collaboration - weaving between disciplines, partnering between diverse ways of thinking - to be the key component in our response to climate change. This piece represents the awkward and dreamy wonder of our species and offers that we are, in connection to other life on this planet, a species worth saving.
Black and white photograph shows a person with lighter skin standing on a sandy beach looking toward houses along the coastline that are perched at the edge of a sand berm. One house has collapsed into the sand below.
J. Matt
Structure Failure on O‘ahu in the Global Warming Era
(2022, photography)
Artist's statement: The Ke Nui structure failure illustrates the complexity of coastal climate politics. The owners are native Hawaiians who have kept the building in the family for five generations — descendants of a thriving kingdom overthrown under threat of U.S. arms. Receding coastlines will force reckoning with not only issues of historical Indigenous exploitations and wealth concentration but also community, individual, and states’ rights pertaining to physically indefensible coastal private property. Without a coastal action plan, property owners in Hawai‘i rely on illegal courses of action when responding to catastrophes such as this one.
Brightly colored oil painting using vivid blues, purples, oranges, yellows, and greens depicts a person with lighter skin in the aftermath of a storm. The person stands in a yard amid scattered debris from what appears to be a destroyed home. A house in the background remains standing, with a row of leafless trees behind it.
Mia Merlin
Maria
(2017, oil on paper)
Artist's statement: This piece was painted after the devastation of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The reality of the climate crisis and its impact on those experiencing poverty was visually clear in the reference photo I used. As I painted, I connected even more with the violence and rawness of the losses Puerto Ricans faced. My intention in painting is to stir up the empathy in others. This woman's vibrant clothes and home seem to defy the hopelessness of her stance and circumstance. I don't want her to feel alone in this crisis.
Mixed-media collage contains images that include cars, sailboats, storm-damaged structures, human figures, trees, and maps.
Melanie Mills
Climate Change - Hurricane
(2021, mixed media with maps and blue tarp)
Artist's statement: 'Climate Change - Hurricane' explores human influence on climate forces, which in turn impact the human environment. The collage piece reads from left to right and includes mixed media, maps, and blue tarp material, which is pervasive in areas that have lost roofs from high wind. The piece concerns sea level rise and the increased intensity of hurricanes, particularly in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean islands. Of note is the impact on populations that repeatedly face displacement, loss, and hardship, and are economically ill-equipped to fully recover.
Multicolored oil painting shows people with darker skin: a young girl with ponytails shows a look of surprise, a group of older children run through grass, and an older man plays a flute-like instrument. Images in the background include a two-story housing complex with air-conditioning units in the windows, a small store, a fallen sign reading Reserved, a house on fire, a stop sign nearly fully submerged in water, and a mountain landscape with trees.
Amuri Morris
Shelton Johnson Calls
(2021, oil paint)
Artist's statement: This piece reflects Shelton Johnson’s life mission to encourage Black people to reconnect with the natural world. People of disadvantaged groups need to be invited into the space of imagining what a just world is so we can begin to craft it, ensuring positive interactions between different groups of people and their environment. As catalysts for change, we have to look towards ways to include disadvantaged groups in the conversation for planetary change and to foster positive relations between all groups of people.
Photograph shows a slope covered in deep snow, with jutting features and large cracks, crevices, and holes carved into the snow and ice. The bulk of the photograph is in dusky blue, with the exception of one outcropping of snow illuminated by the sun.
Christian Murillo
Glaciers, Last Call
(2022, photographic print)
Artist's statement: The Sulphide Glacier on Mt. Shuksan receives the last ray of light, resembling a glimpse of hope for the glaciers in the North Cascades. As a landscape photographer, I am constantly searching for wilderness areas that provoke the juxtaposing themes of power and fragility, particularly in the context of climate change. I aim to draw my audience in with the beauty of the landscapes and inspire them to contemplate the intrinsic value of wild spaces. We cannot truly protect something we do not love, and we cannot love something that does not move us.
Quilted fabric and embroidery in shades of purple, orange, and brown show a forest of burnt trees surrounded by smoke and burning embers. Superimposed on this scene are two areas of contrasting fabric and thread: one in oranges, yellows, and browns depicting the forest as it burns and the other in greens, oranges, and yellows showing the roots of the trees and fallen leaves.
Ree Nancarrow
Spruce Smoke
(2012, quilted fiber)
Artist's statement: Fire is a critical factor influencing the ecology of the northern Boreal Forest. Wildfires remove the duff and soil layers that insulate permafrost, and as the permafrost melts it releases methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This quilt depicts a flashback of burning spruce trees inset into bare ground and dead trees smoldering after a fire.
Topographic map serves as background for acrylic painting of trunks of birch trees emerging from a blue pool of water.
Meredith Nemirov
Rivers Feed the Trees #467 (Aquifers)
(2022, acrylic on historic topographic map)
Artist's statement: Rivers Feed the Trees is a series of works on historic maps where blue is painted into the topography to create an abundance of rivers and streams. Since the turn of the 21st century, Colorado has experienced periods of extreme drought. This inspired me to create works where I imagine a CO with no drought. I hope these images will encourage people to learn more about where our water comes from and to look for solutions to the dire situation we are facing regarding the future of our water.
Photograph shows a grassy field with trees in the background, blue sky with clouds above, and in the foreground a yellow-and-black street sign reading “Caution: 0.64%.”
Cody Norton
0.64
(2020, construction grade sign, metal post)
Artist's statement: The Texas Blackland Prairies spans from North Texas to San Antonio. This ecosystem has been nearly destroyed by modern agriculture, urbanization of the land, and climate change, leaving less than 1% of the original ecosystem protected (some estimate only 0.64% remains). The current generation may be the last with the opportunity to preserve even small remnants of the once-extensive natural ecosystem. Unless action is taken, this essential prairie for the Central Texas region will be lost.
Mixed-media artwork shows a figure wearing a cap and holding a rectangular basin above their head. Stretching far above the basin are large ribbon-like shapes in patterns of blue, brown, and gray.
Spencer Owen
Catch / Release
(2022, emergency blanket, watercolor, printer ink, magazine collage)
Artist's statement: This piece shows a worker catching or releasing water droplets, and I use emergency blankets to represent disaster relief. Climate change has increased the intensity of natural disasters, which destroy water infrastructure (for example Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico). Clean water has also been prioritized for affluent neighborhoods. The residents of Flint, MI, who are mostly low-income and African American, did not have clean water for years. It is a human necessity to have human water, to catch it, yet people are still being forced to release their right to clean water.
Photograph shows a desert sunrise, with the light illuminating cacti in the foreground.
Diya P.
Youth Entry, Grade 9
Sunrise Over Cholla
(2022, photography)
Artist's statement: This photo was taken in Joshua Tree National Park on a road trip with family including all of my grandparents. I was inspired by the fleeting nature of time and the tenacity of mother nature as illustrated by the cholla cactus, which nourishes desert creatures in the harshest conditions. Watching the sun rise over the Pinto Basin and light the humble cholla cactus on fire, I remembered that as families pass on through the generations, nature is here to sustain us. We all have a duty to protect her
Oil painting in shades of red, blue, purple, yellow, and gray depicts a figure with darker skin and curly hair sitting at the edge of a roof, against a backdrop of ocean and sky.
Judith Peck
Coastal Communities
(2021, oil paint)
Artist's statement: Coastal communities feel the effects of climate change often more drastically than the rest of the county. My painting shows a figure in an inconvenient landscape, on a roof in a flooded town. Global sea level has been accelerating, and the United States has witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. Ignoring this is no longer an option.
Artwork in watercolor and colored pencil depicts a landscape with about half a dozen human figures. Trees are in the background, a marshy area with brown grasses is in the middle ground, and an underwater view with fishes is in the foreground. The marsh and water portions are divided by a rising jagged line as if from a line graph.
Jillian Pelto
Replanting Resilience (Diptych)
(2022, watercolor and colored pencil)
Artist's statement: This work addresses the ways humans and natural habitats are responding to climate adversity in the Gulf of Maine. Three line graphs are incorporated into the painting. They depict, from bottom to top: historic sea level rise from 1950-2021 and projections for future rise to 2050; the increase in National Wildlife Refuge acreage in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire from 2001-2020; the increase in the percentage of US adults who supported policies to protect the environment from 2008-2019. Together, these data show how public efforts are rising to meet the tide.
Painting shows an area of sky at top, a horizon punctuated by trees, and a large area at center and bottom with patches of white, green, gray, and orange.
Tami Phelps
Methane Blues
(2021, cold wax and oil painting)
Artist's statement: My cold wax painting focuses on catastrophic ecosystem change in my home state, Alaska. “Methane Blues” shows melting ice wedges in permafrost under the tundra, weakening land and flora above ground. Collapsing earth creates methane-releasing thermokarst lakes across Alaska. Methane gas occurs when microbes digest decayed plants and animal remains. Their waste product, methane, is a 25-80x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Oil painting depicts 10 different sunsets viewed from the same perspective, showing trees and powerlines and a sky in shades of yellow, green, purple, blue, and gray.
Margaret Plumley
Ten Sunsets From My Studio Window
(2021, oil on canvas)
Artist's statement: This is a series of ten oil paintings, done daily as the sun went down, from my studio in Monterey, California. Every evening was different, with color lighting up the sky, or, if the fog was thick, then glimpses of color around the edges. When there was a wildfire, the air was thick (even by the ocean), hard to breathe, and you could look directly at the sun: a deep red-orange ball trying to break through a mass of gray. Those days are becoming more common around the world.
Mixed-media artwork shows a network of erratic, intersecting lines in shades of brown, blue, and gray, resembling fractured glass.
Deborah Pressman
Drift Ice
(2020, ink, oil sticks on paper)
Artist's statement: How to depict glaciers and ice floes? I form large pieces of paper into topographic representations of landscapes. The tactile features of the work change the perception of the image from flat representation to a semi-sculptural form. The polar regions are the most fragile and consequential for climate change and so far from population centers. Creating images that viewers can almost touch, that gives them a sense of the land, might help to foster shared responsibility for these fragile, vital areas.
Diptych of impressionistic paintings in shades of green, yellow, blue, and pink depicts river landscapes including trees and foliage. Attached to each painting is a circular counting instrument that measures in cubic feet (on top) and gallons (on bottom).
Julia Purinton, Tim Purinton
Go With the Flow
(2021, mixed media)
Artist's statement: The health of the natural world is not always clearly observable – a verdant landscape may in fact be badly damaged. Utilizing a romantic landscape vernacular, referencing paintings in which the natural world evinced awe, this diptych depicts a flow-stressed river compared to its natural stage. Nature tempers climate change but can we ask her to keep buffering, tempering, and sequestering? Combining images of bucolic serenity with conventional scientific instruments, we draw attention to the loss in idyllic settings and what is boiling below the surface.
Watercolor shows people lounging on grass lined by leafless trees next to a body of water filled with litter and pipes spewing a brown substance. One person on the shore, dressed in a long pink skirt and black hat, strolls while carrying an umbrella. The sky in the background is painted in vivid red, yellow, and orange swirls.
Mikaela R.
Youth Entry, Grade 9
Sunday in the Park with Climate Change
(2023, watercolor)
Artist's statement: My painting is a take on the famous 'A Sunday on La Grande Jatte' painting by Georges Seurat. In the original painting, people are enjoying a nice day in the park. My reimagined painting includes a fiery sky, polluted water, and suffering people. These are all effects of climate change that have begun to occur. My painting also shows a wealthy person, who has the luxury of ignoring the problems. I believe this will all worsen if something isn't done to reverse this tragedy.
Pencil drawing shows a globe, with the top half in bright greens and blues and featuring solar panels and wind turbines, and the bottom half obscured by a yellowish haze, with cars and factories spewing smoke. In the lower half a large human hand holds an eraser that is clearing up the pollution, while in the top half another hand is drawing with a pencil.
Ritika S.
Youth Entry, Grade 8
Redrawing The Earth
(2023, colored pencil)
Artist's statement: In my art, I try to convey that we can help reverse the effects of climate change. One hand is erasing the pollution caused by industrialization the world over, and the other is redrawing actions to restore the Earth’s beauty. I have always tried to help out the Earth, through stream clean ups and more. I hope people learn from my art that they can help change the world by just doing simple things like driving less, not littering, and maybe even setting up solar panels or wind turbines. The effects of climate change are only in our hands, so we should do whatever we can to help.
Oil painting shows a diverse landscape, with the left two-thirds showing a primarily lush, green scene with a snow-capped mountain, buildings with green roofs, farms, a farmers’ market, deer, bears, and salmon. A storm with lightning appears in the background. Toward the top right, the scene becomes more arid, with a wildfire and brown, treeless hills topped by wind turbines.
Claire Seaman
Imagining Climate Resiliency in the Pacific Northwest
(2021, oil on canvas)
Artist's statement: This piece was commissioned by the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group. Developed in collaboration with scientists and tribal representatives, the work acknowledges the inevitable while highlighting how we can cultivate good. From the urban West Coast to the shrubsteppe of eastern Washington, resiliency looks different in every landscape. True resiliency is not bound within the realm of science; social justice is equally as vital to every solution. The piece aims to make climate resiliency concepts more accessible. After all, before any goal can be accomplished, it must first be envisioned.
Ink and charcoal drawing depicts a twisted, rippling piece of paper or fabric covered in black-and-white gridlines.
Adrien Segal
Rim Fire Progression
(2020, india ink and charcoal on paper)
Artist's statement: I created the Wildfire Progression Series sculptures and drawings using geographic data to reveal the shape of wildfires as they grew over time. Wildfire is both a necessary process for a healthy forest ecosystem and very destructive to human lives. I bring attention to the dissonant forces at play in wildland areas that have regularly burned throughout history, and are increasingly being developed by humans, whose presence in turn disrupts the wildland ecology.
Inkjet print shows a wall of stacked beige sandbags against the background of a bright blue sky covered in wispy clouds.
Katie Shapiro
Untitled
(2010, archival inkjet print)
Artist's statement: This work explores the complex interactions between humans and nature as I have observed them along an exclusive stretch of beachfront property in Malibu. Homeowners in Broad Beach erected sandbags in front of their properties to block the rising sea. The work aims to explore the economic concerns that rising sea levels and eroding beaches provoke in even the most affluent communities.
Charcoal drawing in mostly black and dark shades of gray depicts a bleak cityscape engulfed in smoke and surrounded by floodwaters. Jagged shapes jut out of the water, and human shadows appear across the foreground.
Abhijeet Shrivastava
Cities and Climate Change
(2022, charcoal)
Artist's statement: This artwork portrays a city ravaged by the devastating effects of climate change. Floodwaters and debris have taken over the streets, while plumes of smoke from wildfire fill the air. It serves as a stark warning of the potential consequences if we fail to address the root causes of these hazards and protect our communities from their impact. I am passionately dedicated to tackling these challenges head-on and call on all of us to take urgent action to mitigate the effects of climate change before it's too late.
Photograph shows a person with darker skin standing in front of a two-story building and holding a measuring stick with blue tape attached to it at the person’s hip level. The person wears a sweatshirt with a logo and words reading Minorities in Aquaculture.
Michael O. Snyder
The Coming Coast
(2021, photographic print)
Artist's statement: “The Coming Coast” documents a journey along the 11,000-mile coastline of the Chesapeake Bay as it may yet be in the year 2100. Along the way, I use blue tape to mark the path of the coming coast as it snakes through neighborhoods that are sometimes miles away from the water. I also meet a diverse group of people who are working to adapt to the rising tides. I aim to understand how individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives can, quite literally, find common ground and work together to protect a shared resource.
Triptych still-life drawing depicts many different types of foods, including meat, bread, watermelon, strawberries, celery, citrus, beans, and fish. The branch of a fruit-bearing tree overhangs the scene.
Laura Tanner
Dish
(2022, ink and gouache on hand-cut mylar)
Artist's statement: 'Dish' reflects my ongoing research into eating habits, culinary practices, and social justice in the American South. This has long been a region in flux with the arrival of diverse migrant communities displaced by climatic and social changes. Southern history is reflected in the evolution of its cuisine. I gather oral histories from farmers, chefs, restaurant patrons, and home cooks to better understand the challenges facing this region. Using their stories as inspiration, my drawings present a visual archive of the rituals, recipes, and traditions of communities across the Southeast.
Aerial photograph shows water almost entirely covered in green algae flowing between concrete structures. Litter collects on two of the structures, and green vegetation rises from the water and from gravel bars beside the water.
Eric Tomberlin
Eutrophication
(2007, photography, archival inkjet print)
Artist's statement: Built infrastructure aims to tame the forces of nature, but it can also be hugely disruptive. This image was made in downtown Austin, TX on the Colorado River. Standing water is a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus and for algae, which feed off agricultural fertilizer and cattle waste washed into the water supply.
Ink and watercolor shows an urban street with buildings and power lines that have tree-like branches sprouting from their tops. The sky is colored in horizontal stripes in shades of red, yellow, and orange, while the bottom third of the painting shows horizontal stripes in several shades of blue, suggestive of flood waters.
Andrea Ruedy Trimble
Under Pressure
(2023, ink and watercolor on paper)
Artist's statement: “Under Pressure” represents the stress that a changing climate is placing on our built environment. Heat, depicted with warm colors, descends upon the city, increasing in intensity. The blue of the rising flood waters meets the heat, resulting in compounding consequences. This piece also represents the pressure that we need to put on ourselves to respond. The intersection of natural elements - water, light, and trees - emerging from human-made infrastructure elements, signifies hope that we can quickly act to reduce emissions and transition towards more nature-based, renewable solutions to improve quality of life for all.
Cyanotype print shows the same image of a gasoline pump repeated four times, twice against a white background (left) and twice against a blue background (right). The pump handle is covered with a bag printed with the words “Out of Service.”
Maria Trunk
Positive/Negative
(2022, cyanotype print from digital negative)
Artist's statement: From 2019 to 2022, I photographed the pump every time I filled my car’s gasoline tank. I extracted the pumps from their surroundings and printed them as cyanotypes; the blue and white of cyanotype yields unconventional images that invite closer attention. This process helped me recognize that while fuel pumps are designed for a practical function, they also serve as interfaces between individual humans and vast, impersonal networks of global finance and energy. The arrangement of “Positive/Negative” emphasizes the ambivalence I feel as a participant in this relationship.
A photograph shows a person with lighter skin wearing a white coverall and blue gloves while holding a narrow cylinder of ice parallel to the ground. Extensive hand-written notes on ice-core research are superimposed on the photograph.
Ian van Coller
Dr. Avila Holding Cut Antarctic Icecore
(2017, pigment print on washi with annotations)
Artist's statement: Climate change has compressed and conflated human and geologic time scales, making it essential to find ways to conceptualize “deep time.” This work seeks to make notions of deep time comprehensible through visual exploration of glacier ice, as well as other earthly archives. This project includes intimate collaborations with paleoclimatologists by having them annotate directly onto my photographic prints — a contemporary taxonomy of ice and climate. This portrait was photographed in a cold/clean lab at Montana State University. The ice shown is 10,827 (left side) to 10,833 years old.
Fabric wall hanging with two panels shows, at left, a woven-fabric tartan in shades of blue, pink, and brown and, at right, a looser-weave network of strings interspersed with circles of varying sizes and colors.
Joshua Vorbrich
Wall Hangings: Pollution Tartan and Accountability Abacus
(2019, woven string and fabric on wooden loom)
Artist's statement: In Pollution Tartan (left), each color is proportionate to the carbon emissions of one of the six most polluting countries. They form a tartan, symbolizing the legacy of environmental destruction. In Accountability Abacus (right), each string represents 50M of the 7.8B people in the world and the circles are proportionate to the corresponding peoples’ carbon emissions. The oversized circles push the surrounding white strings–the populations of other countries–out of the way. The burden of adapting to climate change often falls to those who do not create the problem.
Watercolor shows a school of fish in shades of blue, green, brown, and purple swimming in the same direction through rough waters.
Scarlett W.
Youth Entry, Grade 12
Polychromatic Cast
(2023, watercolor)
Artist's statement: My piece depicts fish traveling in a school. I'm trying to express positive energy moving forward. The fish move against currents and through waves, though it is not meant to be scary. The waves capture the light of the sun, which shines onto the fish. In a future that is cast with an environmental water crisis--with rising sea levels, floods, and droughts--the only way to go on is forward. The future should not be scary, as we are together and can only make a change as a collective.
Watercolor collage depicts houses at center surrounded by wave-like shapes in brown, blue, gray, and brown that are suggestive of clouds, rivers, waves, floods, and landslides.
Nikki Way
Snowed/Iced In
(2021, watercolor collage)
Artist's statement: The Great Lakes region is considered a future refuge area against the extreme heat to come. However, there is much uncertainty about the future of our weather. Climate change may bring more intense lake effect snow and ice storms, even as snow and ice cover decrease overall. Our homes, ecosystems, and economies are at risk and we need to be more prepared. Water levels are already sweeping away houses, mangling infrastructure, and disrupting Indigenous traditions. This piece reflects my fear and uncertainty around climate change in the Great Lakes region.
Textile artwork in gray fiber depicts a leafless tree, shown upside-down.
Tali Weinberg
Lungs
(2022, woven plant fibers, petrochemical-derived dyes, monofilament)
Artist's statement: I create weavings and sculptures that explore the interdependence of ecological and human health in the context of the worsening climate crisis. These works trace relationships between personal and communal loss, and between corporeal and ecological bodies. In “Lungs,” I materialize photos I took of trees in a fire-scarred landscape into a woven plastic form that references human anatomy. This is part of a larger body of work examining the interconnections of life-sustaining circulatory systems inside and outside the human body—from lungs and arteries to forests and watersheds.
Ink and colored pencil drawing depicts a handwoven basket in shades of brown and gray sitting on brown cracked soil; a dried willow branch; and, in blue, a map of the Colorado River and its tributaries, stretching south to north from Lake Havasu to Lake Powell and beyond. An index card in front of the pot provides common and scientific names for the willow specimen, the name of the collector, and the collection location and date.
Amy Wendland
Parched
(2022, salix exigua herbarium sample, ink, colored pencil)
Artist's statement: “Parched” is a narrative about drought and water management in the Colorado River Basin. Under the willow is a drawing of a 19th century Paiute water storage basket. This hard-used vessel was made with Salix exigua willow rods, braided horsehair handles, and pinon pitch waterproofing. Family groups used these baskets to store water for several days, refilling only as necessary. Water rights were established in the early 20th century, but allocations were insufficient. Compounding the problem is water loss from current versions of water storage baskets - reservoirs.
Site-specific environmental artwork features a jagged pattern of red string stretched between nails inserted in a patch of brown, cracked earth, resembling surgical stitches.
Tammy West
Keep it Together
(2021, site-specific environmental art)
Artist's statement: Texas and much of the Western United States have been experiencing climate change-induced severe drought. This site-specific piece focuses on our collective climate grief. “Keep It Together” conceptually wills climate change and the drought to end by literally tying cracked earth back together. I wanted this piece to convey the desperate situation that we are in by mimicking surgical sutures or stitches with red string and nails. If we must resort to tying our world back together, we have nothing.
Colorful quilt is patterned in small blocks of green, yellow, orange, red, blue, and purple.
Lorraine Woodruff-Long
San Francisco Air Quality Fall 2020
(2020, fiber)
Artist's statement: This quilt was made as the fires raged in Northern California from September 3 through the first rains of the season on November 8, 2020. Each four-inch square was modeled from the PurpleAir.com outdoor Air Quality Index (AQI) of San Francisco. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution and the greater the health concern. Air quality ranged from purple/red (hazardous/unhealthy), to orange/yellow (unhealthy for sensitive groups/moderate) to green (good/satisfactory.) San Francisco’s microclimates cause variety across the city, as indicated by the varied confetti and bar colors.
Painting depicts cows on pasture beneath a cloudy sky in shades of gray, white, brown, and green.
Julia Y.
Youth Entry, Grade 9
The Overtaker
(2023, paint)
Artist's statement: I was trying to convey the atmospheric pollution caused by agriculture and livestock. The yellowed wash was meant to be an ode to older paintings, which in my viewpoint, produced a somber mood. The thriving issue of climate change was what I wanted to visually stimulate in my piece. The longstanding battle of protecting the earth we share feels reminiscent to the battles we had, and still have, amongst society. The opponent has not differed and it is still us.
Digital artwork shows undulating, intertwined, ribbon-like shapes in shades of blue, green, white, yellow, and red, with a hazy sun at top center.
David Zeiset
FireStorm’23
(2022, digital rendering)
Artist's statement: This work aims to bring greater awareness to the strength and power of fire and its ability to influence the environment. This work was created after studying many media images of wildfires throughout the country and the world. It aims to capture the terror of wildfires, implant a memorable image in our minds, and give us an opportunity to have a meaningful relation to nature.

Likelihood

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99%–100% 90%–100% 66%–100% 33%–66% 0%–33% 0%–10% 0%–1%

Confidence Level

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  • Strong evidence (established theory, multiple sources, well-documented and accepted methods, etc.)
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  • Competing schools of thought
  • Inconclusive evidence (limited sources, extrapolations, inconsistent findings, poor documentation and/or methods not tested, etc.)
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