Miami artists team up for Wynwood mural project to bring awareness to sea-level rise

Miami startup Saltmates, an app focused on connecting nearby ocean lovers while also taking direct action on environmental issues, partnered with PangeaSeed Foundation’s Sea Walls initiatives last week for their launch, which featured four local artists (Tatiana Suarez, Evoca One, Nicole Salgar, Ernesto Maranje) creating large-scale murals in Wynwood designed to bring awareness to Climate Change and our rising seas.

The “Ocean Lifestyle” app strives to “build meaningful relationships through real life experiences that have a positive impact in the communities that live, breath, and sleep ocean life,” per the press release, with 10 percent of future profits going towards Ocean Conservation Groups.

Their first partnership was with PangeaSeed’s Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans, whose mission is to “inspire and affect positive change on global ocean environmental issues by harnessing the power of art, science, and creativity to generate awareness and stimulate dialogue.”

While initial studies projected seas to rise by about three feet by 2100, newer research suggests it could double by the end of the century, to over six feet, if levels of greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rampant pace.

Courtesy of Tre' Packard/PangeaSeed Foundation 2017

This would be catastrophic for low-lying cities like Miami and especially Miami Beach, where a pump system has definitely help many flooding issues but appears to be a band-aid fix when looking at the big picture, while also presenting environmental issues, like discharging human feces into the bay.

Meanwhile, there are worries over how the current White House will address Climate Change over the next four years, which has become a polarizing political issue despite concrete evidence indicating it’s not a theory but a fact.

Donald Trump has tweeted many times in recent years declaring global warming a hoax.

The Wynwood project was completed over the weekend and the Saltmates app is currently available for iPhone and Android devices.

Tre' Packard / PangeaSeed Foundation 2017

Tre' Packard / PangeaSeed Foundation 2017

Tre' Packard / PangeaSeed Foundation 2017

Tre' Packard / PangeaSeed Foundation 2017