The effect of burning fossil fuels – then and now. From my touring exhibition 2024Art for Planet Earth.

I doubt many visitors to my exhibition will remember the pea-soup smog that enveloped London in 1952. This painting is a story about how much pollution is pumped into the atmosphere by coal burning power stations – then and now. The noxious smog in ’52 brought home that the pollution wasn’t escaping and people died from the toxic fumes.

Today burning fossil fuels and releasing their carbon content is one of the major contributors to air pollution and climate change, heating the planet to ever more dangerous levels. We are on the verge of irreversibly passing the so-called ‘safe’ temperature of 1.5C within a few years.

The figure in a helmet is the ghost of miners from bygone years. The spectral figure on the right represents lobbyists, oil companies and Governments, all chasing the profit motive. A young girl portrays future generations who will have to deal with climate change as a result of rising carbon emissions from continued and widespread use of fossil fuels. If nothing is done, will we all be wearing gas masks to go shopping in the High Street?

Wraith-like figures in masks are walking through poisonous smoke pumped out by industries all over the planet as non-renewable fossil fuels are burnt and turned into gas and oil to be used for transport, fuel, electricity, power stations and heating our homes. What happens when these resources are used up?

The recent COP28 brought to light that the fossil fuel industries are not planning to go quietly. Currently, not a single G20 country has policies in place that are consistent with the 1.5C target. Some, including the UK, are moving in the wrong direction by reducing environmental protections. Petrostates are planning a huge expansion of fossil fuels, in Africa in particular, with billions of dollars in profit, according to a UN Report in 2023.

We urgently need to shift to a zero-carbon economy. There’s no more time for complacency.