Fossil fuels are the primary cause of the climate crisis, resulting in this summer’s extreme heat, mega-fires, toxic smoke, and flooding disasters. As the climate crisis escalates, so too does the movement for climate justice.

The United Nations is calling on world leaders to take real steps to lead us off fossil fuels in order to protect people and the planet. On September 20 at the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit, government leaders from around the world will meet with the goal of committing to phasing out fossil fuels.

At the same time, people across the world will be in the streets pushing these leaders to end fossil fuels. Thousands will march in the streets of New York City at the March to End Fossil Fuels, students across the world will be engaging in a Climate Strike, and Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels will have actions everywhere. Simultaneously, Art to End Fossil Fuels posters and signs will be in the streets and on walls across North America.

In the U.S., climate activists are demanding that the Biden administration:

• Stop federal approval of new fossil fuel projects and repeal permits for “climate bombs” like the Willow Project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline;
• Phase out fossil fuel drilling on our public lands and waters;
• Declare a climate emergency to halt fossil fuel exports and investments abroad;
• Turbocharge the build-out of more just, resilient, distributed energy (like rooftop and community solar); and
• Provide a just transition to a renewable energy future that generates millions of jobs while supporting workers’ and community rights, job security, and employment equity.

Artist-organizer Favianna Rodriguez lays out the importance of art and artists in the movement to protect our climate:

The power of art and culture is that it speaks to our heart. It speaks to our emotions, and it also opens up our imagination to show us what’s possible. It takes us to another world. What we urgently need in our climate movement is to be able to imagine solutions and see ourselves in a different kind of relationship to nature.

Here are the five artists and their poster art designs.

Extreme Heat

“I really wanted this poster to give some context about how this heat actually feels,” said Phoenix-based artist Luz Pacheco about the design they made for Art to End Fossil Fuels. Luz designed the poster during the hottest month ever recorded in a U.S. city, with every day in Phoenix above 110°F for a month, and never cooling below 90°F at night.

“My work and my identity are informed by the desert, its colors, its energy, and the living beings that call it home. I grew up in Sonora with my grandparents who took me on long road trips through nearby states. As they sourced merch for their tianguis and bodega, I spent a lot of time looking out the car window at the moving landscapes. I learned to measure distance in saguaros and mountains, and time by where the sun hits the car. I have experienced the desert in a lot of its seasons and phases, but never like this summer.”

Flooding

The Rutland, Vermont, muralist and printmaker known as LMNOPI wrote in her statement about the design, “I took breaks from scrambling around my basement, sweeping water towards the pump, to work on the poster design for this campaign. Staring at the defiant red-headed girl up to her neck in water while I could hear water pouring into my basement felt surreal; as if I was staring into a kind of art mirror.”

The National Weather Service called it The Great Vermont Flood of July 2023, writing “Catastrophic flash flooding and river flooding occurred across much of Vermont. Extensive flooding to communities, washouts of numerous roads and bridges, and even the occurrence of land and mudslides resulted in significant property losses. Two fatalities tragically occurred in connection with the flooding.”

Fire and Smoke

Erica Alexia Ledesma made her design amid summer wildfires and smoke.

“The last week there have been multiple fires in our Rogue Valley, Oregon,” she said. “AQI (Air Quality Index) has been over 500, which is completely unhealthy for our bodies, our lungs. In 2020 the Almeda Fire swept through our communities and destroyed my neighborhood. I’ve been involved in the just recovery work here at home. In my art piece the fire stands out. Fire has created a lot of trauma for my community. We also know that fire is medicine—sacred—but because we have not been tending to the lands and we have been disconnected from the land, we are experiencing more and more wildfires. Arts and culture are key tools in our fight to end fossil fuels and preserve a livable planet for future generations.”

The Power of Art

Favianna Rodriguez writes, “In order for us to halt the climate crisis, we not only have to shut down the fossil fuel industry, but we have to reimagine our relationship to energy and to the natural world. Our current relationship to the Earth is based on destructive myths that have shaped our cultural imaginations since colonization. We need artists to help us imagine a future where together we thrive with nature.”

“The power of art is that it can help us heal our relationship to nature and help us as human beings understand that we can move away from an extractive relationship toward a regenerative one. Our collective home is literally on fire, and we need all the tools of creativity to awaken our communities so that we may rise up and topple the dirty energy industry.”

Mountain Valley Pipeline

Jan Martijn Burger says, “I’ve been working to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline—the Southgate Extension comes down the Haw River past our home in North Carolina. When a child sees their parents actively working for something they believe in—even something overwhelming like defending our climate against the fossil fuels industry, then the child will feel like it’s worth fighting for too. And that they have power and are not helpless. I made this image of a family pushing over an oil drill with that in mind.”

The Peace Poets

The Peace Poets recently wrote the song “The End of Fossil Fuels” for the NYC March, Climate Strike, and Global Days of Action. Specific lyrics were written for each of the three posters on Floods, Fires and Smoke, and Extreme Heat.

They write about the song, “This song comes from people’s pain transforming into people power! We are naming the disasters, we are declaring our commitment to rise up singing, and prophesying our victory by declaring what all life on Earth desperately needs: an end to the extraction of fossil fuels. When we sing these first lines together, we name the pain to make sure none of us feel alone in these crises. When we promise to rise up and sing, we’re inviting the activation of our collective voice to usher in the new era we need. Let us not be shy about predicting a future without fossil fuel extraction, let us sing this transformation into the streets and parliaments, the hearts and minds, of people everywhere until it becomes our reality. These are times for singing spells, times for composing commitments, time to fight back beautifully.”

Song: The End of Fossil Fuels 

When we Organize

To Fight and Win

A whole new era is about to begin

It’s the END of FOSSIL FUELS

the END of FOSSIL FUELS!

When the fire gets high,

When the smoke rolls in,

When the people rise and you hear us sing,

It’s the END of FOSSIL FUELS

the END of FOSSIL FUELS

When the water gets high,

When the floods roll in,

When the people rise and you hear us sing,

It’s the END of FOSSIL FUELS

the END of FOSSIL FUELS

When the heat gets high,

When the sidewalks singe,

When the people rise and you hear us sing,

It’s the END of FOSSIL FUELS

the END of FOSSIL FUELS

Resources

ORDER POSTER ART: bit.ly/OrderArtToEndFossilFuels

ART TO END FOSSIL FUELS ART KIT: Artists’ full statements, art downloads, tips, recipes, and guide to use the poster art and make art to end fossil fuels: bit.ly/arttoendfossilfuels