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With a series of large-scale artworks visible from above, activists at 350.org hope to harness the power of aerial imagery to raise environmental consciousness beyond the local, drawing attention to climate policy in ways that statistics do not.
The organization's name comes from what climate scientists say is the upper limit on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Beyond [350 parts per million](http://www.350.org/en/about/science), climate change will likely outpace the ability of natural and human systems to adapt. As of now, atmospheric CO2 is about 390 ppm.
The artworks precede next week's United Nations [climate-policy meeting in Cancun](http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/2010/11/22/early-ink-cancun-climate-talks-start-next-week/), where negotiators will try to strike a global deal on fossil fuel emissions. Their last attempt, in Copenhagen one year ago, ended in failure.
Since then, the global weather has become even weirder, with extreme events — [heat waves in Russia](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/russian-heat-asian-floods/), floods in South Asia, megastorms on the U.S. East Coast — [fitting predicted climate-change patterns](http://www.pewclimate.org/blog/gulledgej/climate-risks-lessons-from-2010%E2%80%99s-extreme-weather). In the United States, still the world's major producer of greenhouse gases, a [bipartisan climate-change bill failed](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza).
It's easy to become cynical about the situation. But the people filling a dry riverbed in these images and forming other symbolic messages in the other images in this gallery still have hope.
[](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/?attachment_id=43253)
*Top: Girl Scouts, church groups and other local citizens in Santa Fe, New Mexico, stand with blue tents and posters in the Santa Fe riverbed./DigitalGlobe and 350.org.
Bottom: Don Usner/350.org*
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