Our thinking

How creative visuals can help people understand the climate crisis

20 June, 2025

How do you communicate the impact of nearly two centuries of climate change, in just a couple of minutes? Increasingly, the answer lies in creative visualisation. Show, don’t just tell. Two recent pieces from the New York Times caught our eye for doing just that.

The first, How Close Are We to Climate Tipping Points? uses spinning globes to map the fragile thresholds of our planet’s systems, from coral reefs to permafrost, ice sheets to ocean currents. It’s a powerful reminder that we’re closer than we think to irreversible change. The second, Bad Future, Better Future, is designed for children, but its message resonates with all ages. Through gentle watercolour illustrations, it tells the story of how we got here, and the two paths that lie ahead. One bleak. One hopeful.

What makes both pieces stand out is their use of creativity to cut through the noise. Climate change is often communicated through dense graphs and heavy data. But here, movement, colour, and storytelling bring the science to life, and make it stick.

One of the early examples of this approach was Warming Stripes, a minimalist visualisation of rising global temperatures since 1850. At first glance, it looks like abstract art. But look again, and you see the story of a warming world told in a single glance.

Why does this matter? Because how we communicate climate change shapes how we understand it, and how we act. The more accessible, emotional, and immediate we can make it, the better.

We’re always on the lookout for creative depictions that bring the climate crisis into focus. Seen something that made you stop and think? We’d love to hear about it.

By Alice Railton