As a treacherous storm ripped through Northeastern US submerging subway lines, cars, and basement apartments, people were left to grapple with the thoughts, or even reality, of swimming to safety, deadly flooding, or being trapped on a train overnight without ventilation.

Fueled by climate change, Hurricane Ida – which led to record-breaking rainfall and has become known as “the deadliest storm since Sandy” – exemplified the intensifying effects of the climate crisis that will only become more common if rising temperatures aren’t controlled. This summer alone, it’s been joined by extreme heat waves across America, wildfires across hundreds of thousands of acres, and severe flooding in the United States, Western Europe, and India – resulting in a snapshot of what our planet could face in the coming decades.

The latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states the dire consequences that humanity will face if we don’t act boldly now, and the rapidly closing window to address the climate crisis and limit global warming.

The moment we’re in calls for opportunities for the world to come together to take substantial steps in protecting our planet and its ecosystems. Leading this push for action is the rising generation who have grown up feeling the effects of climate change, and who will live to see the climate crisis play out.

A Call for Bold Action from the Next Generation

According to a new global study from BBMG partner GlobeScan, young people under age 30 in the US are significantly more likely than those over 30 to believe that climate change is a very serious and urgent problem, to experience the effects of climate change personally, and to want to take action to drive positive change.

Personally Affected by Climate Change: Respondents under 30 are much more likely than those over 30 to say that they are greatly or moderately affected personally by climate change or global warming (70% to 53%). Gen Z is more than 3X as likely as Boomers to say they are greatly affected personally by climate change or global warming (38% to 12%).

Climate Change is a Very Serious and Urgent Problem: Respondents under age 30 are 10 percentage points more likely to say climate change or global warming is a very serious problem compared to those over age 30 (61% to 51%). And Gen Z and Millenials are much more likely than Boomers to strongly agree that “we as a society should respond to climate change with the same urgency as the COVID health pandemic” (51% to 36%).

Seeking to Change Lifestyle by a Great Deal: Respondents under 30 are also more likely than those over 30 to say they “want to change their lifestyle to be more environmentally friendly and reduce their personal impact on the environment and the climate by a great deal” (46% to 36%), and that after the pandemic they will be “buying more from socially and environmentally responsible companies” (47% to 29%).

Harnessing the Power of Creativity

The rising fear and anger from the next generation has us reflecting on how businesses and brands can act with more creativity and boldness in creating breakthrough solutions for the future of our planet and generations to come. 

In thinking about the role that creativity can play in shifting culture, structures and behaviors to address the immediate issues Earth is facing, we’re thrilled to be teaming up with Fifth Wall in creating an art installation to challenge the status quo and inspire innovative ways to drive climate leadership and change by focusing on an essential – and often underrepresented – climate story: the built environment.

Fifth Wall is a venture capital firm who recently launched their Climate Tech Fund focused on decarbonizing the real estate industry by inventing climate technologies that can be used in the built environment to address climate change.

“We are at a watershed moment where we can still make a difference and we can still avert from the worst disasters of climate change. But we have to act now and we have to act in a big way,” says Greg Smithies, Partner of the Climate Tech Fund at Fifth Wall. 

Real estate is the world’s largest contributor to the climate crisis, accounting for 40% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

“We’re hoping to rally the real estate industry, and the public, around doing something significant to decarbonize, and doing it now,” says Smithies. “That’s why Fifth Wall is doing something unprecedented in the venture capital industry by putting up this mural.”

The message of “Before we build on other planets, shouldn’t we clean up our own?” puts into question why we’re spending ridiculous amounts of money planning for Mars when we can better build Earth, aiming to inspire people to see that even though Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s space race may be thrilling, “fixing our own planet is probably the most exciting thing we can do,” says Smithies. 

To call attention to the significant need for meaningful investments in climate technologies for decarbonization, we collaborated with New York-based artist Steffi Lynn to turn the design story and messaging into reality with a mural in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood at 11 Franklin Street.

Working at the intersection of art and social change, Steffi describes art as a visually digestible way to break through to the average viewer on “huge, overbearing, and intimidating issues” in ways that other formats simply cannot. 

“Public art forces the viewer to see, confront, and think about [an] issue or topic,” says Steffi. “An unexpected interaction like this can be the catalyst for someone to really start making some changes in their own life.”

With the environment and Earth largely inspiring her illustrations and artwork, Steffi hopes that the mural will be a reminder to people that “our planet is beautiful and should continue to be cherished. We only have one planet that we know for sure works for us, why are we throwing it away?” 

We Need Collective Climate Action

Climate sits at the core of the biggest threats that humanity faces. And the only way to prevent the worst of effects is to inspire a scale of action that matches the scale of the issue. For the next generation and beyond, the survival of our planet will rely on our collective ability to rapidly take action and cut carbon emissions. 

We have less than eight years to get climate under control before irreversible damage. Tell us what you’re doing, seeing, and championing so we can all join together and #ChooseEarth.