35 Street Art Murals About Climate Change and Consumerism

Environmental street art takes the biggest problems of our time, climate change, pollution, deforestation and throwaway consumption, and paints them where nobody can scroll past: on canal walls, gable ends, drains and tree stumps. The 35 works below come from artists including Banksy, Blu, ROA, Pejac, Natalia Rak, Eduardo Kobra and Pøbel, and each one makes its argument in a single image or a handful of words.

The issues they point at are real and measurable. Average global surface temperature over the decade 2016–2025 was about 1.26 °C above the 1850–1900 baseline, and 2024 was the warmest year on record at roughly 1.6 °C above it. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now about 50 percent higher than before the industrial era, a level not seen for millions of years. Sea level is rising by close to 5 centimetres per decade, and Arctic sea ice has been shrinking and thinning for decades.

30+ Street Art Images That Testify to Uncomfortable Truths

A polar bear on a shrinking ice floe has become the most familiar symbol of a warming Arctic. Image shared by CriticalSolutions.

Numbers like these are hard to feel. A good mural is not. Below, the works are grouped by theme, with notes on who made them and what they are saying. Artist names follow the credits in the original collection; where we could not confirm an attribution, we say so.

Climate change and melting ice

I Don't Believe in Global Warming (Banksy)

Banksy painted this line beside the Regent's Canal in Camden, London, in 2009, around the time of the Copenhagen climate summit. The words sit just above the waterline, so the slogan of denial is itself half underwater. It is one of the clearest examples of a site doing half the work of an artwork.

What Is Global Warming? (Camila Echavarria)

A digital riff on the same idea: the denial slogan sprayed on a house as brown floodwater rushes past. The logo in the corner shows it was made to promote an environmental app called Bert Save the Earth. It is a reminder that street art images are often remixed into campaigns and adverts.

The World Is On Fire (Eduardo Kobra)

This red wall, credited to the Brazilian muralist Eduardo Kobra, shows a polar bear balanced on a melting blue globe while flames rise from the water around it. Kobra, from São Paulo, is known for vivid, kaleidoscope-coloured murals. Fire and ice in the same frame make the point about rising temperatures without a single word.

Ice Ice Baby (Pøbel)

Norwegian artist Pøbel, who works anonymously, borrowed a 1990 pop hook for this piece of a polar bear pushing a supermarket trolley. The bear has, quite literally, been reduced to shopping for ice. Pøbel is known for painting abandoned buildings in rural northern Norway and for works about places left behind.

The Clock Is Ticking (credited to Blu)

A giant hourglass runs the height of a building, with ice and water draining from the top bulb onto a city at the bottom. The original collection credits it to the Italian artist Blu; we could not confirm the attribution or location. The image is simple: time, and the ice, are running out.

The World Is Going Down the Drain (Pejac)

Spanish artist Pejac, born in Santander in 1977, painted a black world map pouring into a street drain like dirty water. Pejac often works with silhouettes and with the existing features of a place, here an ordinary gutter. The phrase "going down the drain" becomes a picture.

No Future (widely attributed to Banksy)

A small stencilled girl holds a balloon on a string, and the balloon forms the letter O in the words "No Future" painted in red. The piece is widely attributed to Banksy and was reportedly painted in Southampton, England, around 2010; the photo here was credited to Marnie Cotton. It echoes Banksy's better-known balloon girl, but with a much bleaker message.

Forests, land and the spreading city

Don't Forget to Water the Plants (Natalia Rak)

Polish artist Natalia Rak painted this girl in folk costume on a tall wall in Białystok, Poland, in 2013. She seems to water a real tree that stands in front of the building, so the painting and the street blend into one scene. The work is often called The Legend of Giants.

Killing the Earth Is Killing Us (Pejac)

Another Pejac piece: a row of black figures swing axes downward, but their legs turn into roots. Every blow aimed at the forest is also a blow aimed at themselves. Deforestation is a recurring theme in Pejac's work.

I Remember When All This Was Trees (Banksy)

Banksy painted this boy with a paint can among the ruins of the abandoned Packard car plant in Detroit in 2010. The line works twice: Detroit's factories replaced woodland, and then the factories themselves collapsed. The wall section was later removed by a local gallery and sold.

Unsustainable Urbanisation (credited to Blu)

Unsustainable Urbanization Is Killing The Planet

A giant mouth whose teeth are apartment blocks bites down, while a hand nearby holds a single small tree. Blu, who was born in Senigallia and is based in Bologna, has painted many murals on cities eating the land. Read together, the two images ask what is left when the buildings have had their fill.

We're Consuming the Earth (Nemos)

We’re Consuming The Earth And Her Resources

A pale, gangly creature gnaws on a tree while trailing a long line of tiny houses behind it. The piece is credited to the street artist Nemos. Consumption here is shown as a hunger that never ends.

The Earth Pie (Blu)

Blu sliced the planet like a layered cake: a green crust with trees on top, and underneath, layer after layer of buried rubbish. A huge cartoon hand holds the slice out like dessert. It is a neat way to show that what we throw away does not disappear; it just goes down.

Grow (Jesse Graves)

Painted on the cut face of a tree stump, this simple sequence of black symbols shows a seed, a leaf, fire and a fallen tree, the life of the tree itself told on its own rings. It is credited to Jesse Graves. Few works in this list use their surface so cleverly.

Remember What the Sky Looks Like? (Banksy)

Remember What The Sky Looks Like? It’s Hard To See Past Concrete Buildings.

Banksy painted a series of works on the Israeli West Bank barrier in 2005, many of them showing "holes" in the concrete that open onto blue skies and beaches. In this one a child with a bucket and spade climbs a pile of rubble towards the painted sky. The piece is political rather than environmental, but it speaks to the same longing for open space.

Animals caught in our world

Animals in the Zoo (ROA)

ROA, a Belgian artist from Ghent, is famous for huge black-and-white animals painted to fit the walls they are on. Here, sleeping or dead creatures lie stacked on the ledges of a city building, like specimens on museum shelves. ROA usually paints species native to the place where he works.

Locked Up Animals (ROA)

For this installation, ROA painted animals inside a tower of stacked shipping containers, with each container turned into a cage. The work is usually linked to a 2014 series of containers he painted as cages. It points at captivity, trade and the way wild creatures are boxed up for human use.

Animal Cruelty (ROA)

A giant hare hangs upside down from its feet, its body painted as though skinned to show red muscle. ROA often reveals the insides of animals in this way. It is uncomfortable to look at by design, recalling the hunting and fur trades.

Born to Be Wild (July)

A stencilled bear in a tutu and party hat rides a unicycle beside the words "Born to Be Wild". Credited to a street artist who signs as July, it targets circuses and shows that make wild animals perform. The joke lands because the bear clearly was not born for this.

A Seal and Its Plaything (Blu)

Blu painted a white seal balancing a yellow object on its nose against a red brick building, next to an old factory chimney. The original collection reads it as a seal playing with oil. The setting, an industrial site, suggests where the animal's world and ours collide.

Nothing to Eat (credited to Banksy)

A dark bear stands at the edge of a dried, weedy pool and roars at a fish skeleton. The collection credits it to Banksy, but it is not among his documented works, so the attribution is uncertain. The message is clear either way: when water and fish vanish, so does food for everything that depends on them.

It's Not a Mystery

A stencilled hare holds a sign saying that the Earth is not dying but being killed, and that those killing it have names and addresses. The line is often attributed to the American folk singer and activist Utah Phillips. The photo was shared via the blog madeinpain.wordpress.com.

Enough

Beneath the word "Enough", a stencilled animal head appears with a gun and splashes of red. The original collection credits it to Crazy Tomato. Placed by a drainage pipe, it reads as a protest against hunting and the violence done to animals.

Oil, pollution and waste

Eating the Earth (Blu)

On a run-down building in Lisbon, Blu painted a giant man in a suit sucking the planet dry through a straw. His crown is made of oil company logos. It is one of Blu's best-known images, and a blunt comment on who profits from fossil fuels.

When Life Gives You Oil Spills

Two stencilled children play by a polluted pool beneath a "beach closed" sign, while the wall says that when life gives you oil spills, you make Molotov cocktails. The artist is unknown. It twists the old lemons-into-lemonade proverb into an angry call to resist.

The Impact of Air Pollution (Gnaf)

A smoking chimney on a real rooftop lines up with a printed poster so that it becomes the barrel of a revolver. The small text states that air pollution kills 50,000 people a year, a figure from the campaign itself. The World Health Organization now estimates that air pollution is linked to millions of deaths worldwide each year.

Poor Earth (Sever)

Above a pile of dumped tyres, a sick, feverish Earth with a thermometer in its mouth is being squeezed by a tyre-company mascot. The mural is credited to Sever. Old tyres are a real waste problem, slow to break down and a fire hazard when dumped.

Consumerism and Delivering Trash (credited to Ernestas Zacharevicius)

A thin man pedals a cargo tricycle piled high with black rubbish bags, painted so the real bike seems to carry the load. The collection credits it to Ernest Zacharevic, the Lithuanian-born artist based in Penang, Malaysia, famous for murals that combine paint with real objects. Behind the humour is the hard work of the people who collect and sort what richer consumers throw away.

Consumerism, fast food and media

If You Follow the News (GroovyMutation)

The text on this black board reads as a mock news bulletin: rich people paying rich people to tell middle-class people to blame poor people. It was shared by GroovyMutation. It is less about the environment than about who gets blamed for problems, which is often the real fight behind environmental policy.

Parking (Banksy)

On a wall in Los Angeles around 2010, Banksy painted a girl on a swing hanging from the letters "ING" in a car-park sign, turning "PARKING" into "PARK". It is a gentle, almost wistful piece about green space lost to tarmac.

Eat Yourself

A stencilled cow holds up a sign telling people, in very strong language, to eat themselves. The artist is unknown. It is the angriest work here, and a reminder that the debate about meat and factory farming can be furious.

Misunderstood Cow (July)

Painted as an old computer screen, this piece by July shows a cow asking why there is a hole in its stomach, and a computer explaining that scientists said it would make better burgers. The hole recalls the "fistulated" cows used in real agricultural research to study digestion. It is darkly funny and unsettling at once.

New McDonald's Opening

Winnie the Pooh and his friends stare at a signpost where "100 Aker Wood" shrinks to "10 Aker Wood", then "1 Aker Wood", and finally points to a supermarket and a fast-food chain. Christopher Robin, in a fast-food cap, looks on. It was shared on Reddit without an artist's name.

Beware, Happy Meals Kill (Valisstellar)

A paste-up on a concrete pillar shows a cartoon girl dressed in a fast-food clown's colours, eating a burger. It is credited to Valisstellar. The piece pokes at how fast-food brands market directly to children.

Shuts: Every Little Shop (Octopus Creative)

This parody swaps a famous British supermarket's slogan "Every little helps" for "Every little shop" under the word "SHUTS". Credited to Octopus Creative, it criticises the way big chains can drive independent local shops out of business. The supermarket logo style makes the target instantly clear.

Thanks for Selling Me (Julija K)

A grey mural with the word "Thanks" in white script carries a price tag, suggesting that nature itself has been put up for sale. It is credited to Julija K. The bicycles locked to the railing in front give the scene an everyday, street-level feel.

Does street art change anything?

One mural will not cut emissions. What street art does well is grab attention in places that adverts and news stories already compete for, and make an abstract issue personal. Banksy's canal slogan and Blu's oil-crowned giant have travelled far beyond their walls through photos and shares, reaching people who would never read a climate report.

Many of these works are also temporary. Walls are painted over, buildings are demolished, and some artists remove their own work in protest; Blu erased his murals in Bologna in 2016 after the city staged an exhibition of his work without his consent. Photos like these are often the only lasting record.

If the images leave you wanting to do something, the most effective steps are practical: cut energy and food waste at home, choose walking, cycling or public transport where you can, support local shops and repair rather than replace. And look closely at the walls in your own town; the next sharp idea may already be painted on one of them.

Sources: Wikipedia: Climate change; NASA: Climate change; Wikipedia: List of works by Banksy; Wikipedia: Blu; Wikipedia: ROA; Wikipedia: Pejac; Wikipedia: Pøbel; Wikipedia: Eduardo Kobra; Wikipedia: Ernest Zacharevic; Wikipedia: Natalia Rak. Collection originally compiled by Bored Panda and shared via True Activist; artworks belong to the artists named.

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