The Power of Art

THANK YOU Welcome This is a photo book about our planet in the early days of the 21st Century. Its images were collected and curated with love and hope by people like you. Today, it serves as a wake- up call. It reveals the burden our home is bearing well over a hundred years into an energy experiment that is beginning to go badly wrong. It gives you a front-row seat to melting glaciers, polluted cities, and dying forests. It shows you communities ravaged by flood or by drought. It highlights the extreme impacts of 昀椀re, To the folks at Getty Images who wind, and ecosystems out of balance. It is an invitation to look with your own eyes on the stark reality of a planet in peril. It is also a peek behind the curtain at the seeds of hope that said yes to using their photo exist in creative solutions being developed every day to reimagine how energy is generated collection. and used and how ecosystems might yet be saved. WITH YOUR OWN EYES is a collection of hopeful images too, reminding us that there is much To Shepard Fairey for donating four yet worth working our very hardest to save and restore. It’s also a call for you to join us. We are building a movement of difference-makers who know that, together, we can do just about magni昀椀cent pieces of cover art. anything. It is not too late. To the other artists who allowed us If you are reading this, you are already making a difference. When you share it with someone, to share their work with the world. you amplify your impact, and ours. If you want to do even more, The Carbon Almanac, and the movement it is inspiring needs you. We need your perspective. We need your passion. We To the dozens of volunteers whose need YOUR energy. hands and creative energies We hope this will stand as a testament to how close we came to a bad outcome, and as a brought this vision to life. reminder that humans can do more good than harm if we point our collective efforts in a shared direction. The time is now. Let’s go!

THE POWER OF ART

The Power of Art Inspiration in Action One of the ways we connect as humans is through art. Art can also inspire action and communicate messy, complex ideas in ways that facts alone sometimes can’t. In this section, we honor the artists who are using their gifts to help us see both the peril we face and the hope available to us more clearly. We hope you enjoy their work. There is urgency. We hope you are ready to spring into action. AND, we invite you to take a pause before you do. Take a deep breath. Gather yourself. Allow inspiration to 昀椀ll you up in equal measure alongside the outrage. Then, come 昀椀nd us at The Carbon Almanac. We’ll be glad to see you and ready to point you in the direction of making your own meaningful difference in this effort that affects us all.

This “Baked Alaska” artwork is about climate change. © Justin Brice Guariglia. 2018.

Artist Lisa K. Blatt states, “...on this apocalyptic “orange day” in San Francisco, CA, the birds did not sing, the street lamps did not turn off and the sun was not visible as smoke from distant 昀椀res blocked the sun.” © Lisa K. Blatt. 2020.

People interact with “Ghost Forest”, an art installation in Madison Square Park, New York by artist Maya Lin. 49 dead Atlantic White Cedar trees were planted as a comment on climate change. © Maya Lin Studio. Photography: Andy Romer, courtesy MSPC. 2021.

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Visitors interact with blocks of melting ice, at exhibit ‘Ice Watch’ by Icelandic- Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and leading Greenlandic geologist Minik Rosing outside Tate Modern in central London. Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images. 2018.

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German artist and environmentalist Arnd Drossel, who walked from Germany to Glasgow in this metal globe, seen at Glasgow day of global action during the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference. Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images. 2021.

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An artwork entitled ‘One Heart One Tree’ by artist Naziha Mestaoui is displayed on the Eiffel tower, as part of the Conference on Climate Change COP21 in Paris, France. Chesnot/Getty Images News via Getty Images. 2015.

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Artists of the local art project, Art 360, paint a mural raising awareness on mental health and global climate changes in Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya. Gordwin Odhiambo/AFP via Getty Images. 2021.

THANK YOU It’s not too late… The Carbon Almanac is a book about energy. It is full of facts about the ways we’ve used energy to make a mess of things and the creative solutions we’re developing to turn the tide. It is also about a different sort of energy. The energy of hope and connection. The ability that For showing up. humans have to solve problems and to make things better. It’s not too late to make a difference, but none of us can solve this challenge on our own. For bearing witness. We need each other to make a difference at a scale that matters. We need to move beyond individual, isolated, effort and join in collective action. For sticking with it. If you’re here, you are already a difference-maker. Find more of us at The Carbon Almanac where you’ll 昀椀nd dozens of ways to join a global movement to 昀椀ght climate change. If not For the difference you’ve made. now, when? For taking the next step….