There is no doubt that heatwaves are getting more frequent and more severe — and that heatwaves can kill. They are in fact one of the most deadly climate-related phenomena impacting people around the world today.
But they are not getting the attention and action they deserve. Unlike tornadoes, cyclones or floods or storms, they are relatively invisible. They often start gradually and build and the people who die, or who get sick, from them are not always reported as casualties of a heatwave. As the IFRC’s Secretary General recently described it, extreme heat is climate change’s silent assassin.
That’s why the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre decided to go beyond words to get the message out during the lead up to Heat Action Day, Sunday, 2 June. Under the theme of urban art for heat action, the Climate Centre invited people to make and share their art on the theme of extreme heat.
To help fuel the creative fire, the Climate Centre commisisoned two artists — Andrew Rae and Ruskin Kyle — to render images on the impact of heatwaves on large population centres.
A young boy with a backpack full of water bottles and other supplies is shown in this work of digital art standing defiant against a towering, robotic alien creature. The artists wanted to show that people can stand up to heatwaves and climate change if we take action and prepare.
Photo: Andrew Rae//Ruskin Kyle/Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
An 'alien invasion'
The artists knew they needed to create something that would get people’s attention so they chose to tell the heatwaves story like scenes from an epic hollywood film.
“We thought of classic apocalyptic films such as Independence Day or Godzilla and so we decided to personify the warming danger as giant marauding robots,” Rae said in a recent interview.
Just as humans have helped to create this monster of extreme heat, the artists created these monsters to make a point about how the world is responding to the rising threat of extreme heat emergencies.
“It struck us that if the world being gradually heated up by alien robots or an enemy state, then governments and people would be very quick to act,” he said. “Unfortunately, as we are causing the problem ourselves, it is much harder to mobilize and to make change. Perhaps if we could visualize the problem as an external enemy robot then it might help to motivate us to action.”
Three women and a child stand in front of a mural created by the Mahila Housing Trust in Jodhpur, India. The mural is part of a larger initiative on mitigating the impacts of extreme heat on vulnerable communities in Jodhpur through early warning systems and raising awareness.
Photo: Mahila Housing Trust
Staying cool, taking action
The idea is to keep raising awareness so that governments, city officials, businesses and individuals understand the threat posed by extreme heat, plan for it and act when it hits. Other forms of art being created also help those impacted by heatwaves, many of whom are already in vulnerable situations because they are elderly, lack access to health care, running water, electricity or other means of staying cool during extreme heat.
From the streetside walls of Jodphur, India, to the subways and streets of Honduras, people around the world are creating murals, paintings, and photographic images aimed at bringing home the point that people are suffering and this threat needs to be taken seriously.
This painting, entitled ‘Fountain won’t save you’ from 11-year-old Indigo Thomas in Switzerland, shows a city square over which the sun is wearing dark glasses, a fountain appears to have dried up, and a Red Cross ambulance is arriving to take care of people fainting in the heat.
Photo: Indigo Thomas
These very varied works of art are hanging in schools, on streetside walls and they are being compiled in an online photo book being shared by the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. New pieces are being added daily as Heat Action Day nears. People are encouraged to submit their own works of art by contacting the Climate Centre through an online form.
Art about heatwaves created by children in Honduras for Heat Action Day.
Photo: Honduran Red Cross
Many of the artworks submitted to the Climate Centre convey sadness and worry, others express anger or share concrete information about what to do when a heatwave strikes.
A city seems to be melting in this image — saturated with reds, oranges and yellows associated with heat — created using an artificial intelligence tool as part of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre’s campaign to get people talking about the increasing occurance of heatwaves.
Photo: Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre
The art covers every medium, from paint on canvas to marker on paper, photography, digital art — even one piece created by artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the profiles of the artists involved equally diverse in terms of the background, gender and age of the people creating them.
A forest singed by wildfire in Turkiye, one of several recent fires during which the Turkish Red Crescent provided emergency relief as people also sweltered through days of high temperatures.
Photo: Elif Irmak Erkek/Turkish Red Crescent Society
Heatwaves heroes
While many of the images reflect the harsh reality many communities now face, they also convey a sense of hope, a sense that something can be done. That we still have the chance to be heroes in our own story about heatwaves.
Not only can people do things to protect themselves, as shown in the murals in Jodphur India, people can do things to change the narrative and the wider response to climate change and its many repercussions.
“It was important to show there are things people can do to fight back against heatwaves,” says Roop Singh, a climate risk adviser with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. “In one of the art works, a boy carries a backpack with water bottles and fans. Simple things, but because of them, he’s undaunted. The rays coming from him – blue – contrast with the reds and oranges. They symbolize hope.”