A recent cartoon competition, set up by a group called Earthworks, gave cartoonists around the world a platform on which to express themselves, and to use their pens and wit to help combat environmental devastation and give new impetus to the fight to stop global warming. Humour is a valuable key in the struggle to win hearts and minds.

A picture may paint a thousand words, but a cartoon provokes, protests and entertains – all at once. It is this that makes cartoonists so valuable and influential in times of crisis.

Today, that crisis is climate change, and clever imagery can give new impetus to our struggle to combat global warming. The organisers of Earthworks 2008, a global cartoon competition, believe that art and humour are simple ways to get the environmental message across.

Many of the competition entries showed passion and were exceptionally well drawn, but the winner, "Coat Star" by Mikhail Zlatkovsky from Russia, held a particularly poignant message, the judges felt, showing humanity in the form of a man indecently exposing himself to a pristine universe.
"It says, 'This is the disdain we've shown our world'," says Renard. "And we felt the sleaziness was appropriate to the topic."

Second prize went to Constantin Ciosu, from Romania, for his illustration of a man holding a flower being chased by hundreds of butterflies, a humorous and unusual take on the world's dwindling natural resources. Finally, "The Hand" by Tawan Chuntraskawvong, from Thailand, was chosen for its immediate impact.

See all of the cartoons

The judging panel, which included cartoonists Martin Rowson and Morten Morland and Green Party principal speaker Dr Derek Wall, among others, had a tough job choosing the three winners.
Powerful, uncompromising and uncomfortable, the cartoons bring home what global warming will mean: not a Costa Brava on the south coast but desertification, widespread hunger and, ultimately, our own destruction.

But they allow us a wry smile as we interpret each artist's take on global warming. And if it's true, as George Orwell stated, that "every joke is a tiny revolution", these cartoons should get the wheel turning.

A selection of the best cartoons will go on tour over the next year. via [independent.co.uk]