Galician street artist Isaac Cordal has nailed it. Perfectly, precisely, poetically, politically: Passivity .

We, the collective we, seem to be waiting passively for someone else to “do something” about climate change. Someone else to think. Someone else to act. Someone else to lead. Not me. Not now. No way.

“Waiting for climate change” is Cordal’s 2012 masterpiece. Described as a “Lilliputian army which attests to the end of an era” by David Moinard, Cordal’s miniature clay figurines – no larger than 25 cm – stand passively on Flemish beaches, some up to their necks in sand, as if waiting for the inevitable rising seas to swallow them whole.

In addition, Cordal perched 10 small figurines atop wooden pedestals, wearing scuba goggles or flotation devices, gazing impassively at the horizon. Still others occupy empty rooms in a dilapidated 1930’s-era beachfront villa.

Painted in drab business suits, most of Cordal’s anonymous clay figurines…

Earth Day 2014. Calling all artists: Earth to Artists! Earth to Artists! Rise! Choose your weapon. This is your moment…

The rest of us have failed:  Nobel laureates, journalists, politicians, parents, academics, activists, CEOs.  No one — yet — has found that elusive holy grail of climate change communication that will resonate with the general public. That special metaphor capable of unlocking the floodgates to climate action.

To date, we’ve learned that:

1. Fire-and-brimstone, doom-and-gloom, fear-based approaches don’t work;
2. The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence doesn’t translate well to the masses (nor to the media, in some cases);
3. Grandiose political oratory followed by inaction doesn’t fool anybody;
4. Environmental activists are, more often than not, preaching to the converted; and
5. Even Hollywood can get its fingers burned drawing attention to the urgency of climate action.

Considering that we, the collective we, seem to be adrift without a compass on the rising seas of climate (mis)communication, logic suggests that we need…