This watercolor is a part of the collaborative environmental project by Helen Klebesadel and Mary Kay Neumann entitled: The Flowers Are Burning: An Art and Climate Justice Project. It can be seen here: https://www.theflowersareburning.com

"A Change is Gonna Come: Tidepools in Peril Series”
Collaborative Watercolor by Mary Kay Neumann and Helen Klebesadel 22x30

"All things are one thing and that one thing is all things…plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time. It is advisable to look from the tidepool to the stars and back to the tidepool again.”

– John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez

Using artistic license, our sunflowers are being engulfed in seawater, undergoing the process of adapting to the changing conditions of climate...overheated, acidified, polluted water and ocean disease. We imagine these flowers transforming into giant green sea anemones, which we’ve always thought of as underwater sunflowers. Notice the ghostly sunflower seastars, now locally extinct on the West Coast, due to Sea Star Wasting Disease.

“Sea creatures suffer more than land animals in the face of climate change . As the Ocean warms, marine animals experience body temperatures that are near their upper tolerance limit more often than land animals do. Local extinctions—when an animal disappears from specific locations instead of their whole range—of marine animals are also twice as common as they are for land animals.

To help marine animals adapt and survive, we must transition away from our reliance on fossil fuels in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, are the driving force behind climate change, both on land and in the ocean. One step the U.S. can take as a nation is to follow through on our emissions reduction pledges, like the one we made as part of the Paris Agreement.

We must also make sure that the ocean is an otherwise safe place for animals to live so that they can adapt as best they can to changing temperatures. That means we need to reduce our plastic use, reduce pollution and sustainably manage our fisheries. And most importantly, we can all vote for leaders who understand and support the need to protect our ocean from the effects of climate change.”

– adapted from Ocean Conservancy website