The Real Price of Gas

Summer 2024 was officially the Northern Hemisphere's hottest on record. In the United States, fierce heat waves seemed to hit somewhere almost every day.

In collaboration with Global Witness, JOAN is launching a thought-provoking campaign designed to highlight the human impact of climate breakdown – a reality that has become all too evident this year given the lives lost to extreme heat.

Launching on October 2 across socials, this campaign aims to compel action, debuting in Texas –where a number of fossil fuel majors are headquartered. Instead of placing an OOH message along busy highways, JOAN unveiled their mobile 15 foot tall OOH gas station sign. The sign, which reads “Big Oil profits. But We Pay The Price,” boldly shows a “ticker-like” casualty count at the home of an actual location where a life was lost due to heat last summer.

This location serves as a stark reminder of the human cost of climate change.
Heat isn’t a new phenomenon. But as the planet gets hotter because of human-caused emissions, scientists are detecting and predicting more heat-related deaths. These are called ‘excess deaths’, which are additional premature deaths attributable to increasing heat.

Burning oil, coal, and gas is responsible for nearly 90 percent of all carbon emissions. These emissions are driving climate breakdown, fueling dangerous heatwaves, and causing widespread harm to both people and the planet. As a leading contributor to global warming, the fossil fuel industry bears significant responsibility for intensifying deadly heatwaves, which are already killing thousands and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, leaving thousands more sick.

The emissions from burning oil and gas produced by Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Chevron until 2050 could cause an estimated 11.5 million additional premature deaths due to heat before the end of the century, a Global Witness analysis reveals.

Through a partnership with local climate groups and victims’ families, JOAN shared personal narratives that transform statistics into stories.

The four compelling stories behind the statistics depicted in the campaign include the following:
Carla Ray Gates - The widow of a postal worker who passed away while exposed to extreme heat while working
Donna Gerran - A volunteer for the VA who lost a close friend while power was lost due to extreme heat
Sheri Davis - A nurse who cares for victims of extreme heat
Christian Grisales- A Dallas Public Health official working to find solutions in his community

These stories are captured as compelling video content for social media, aiming to provide a call to action by driving viewers to Global Witness’s website, where they can find email templates urging our elected officials to make fossil fuel companies make amends for the damage they cause.

This campaign coincides with what appears to be the culmination of major events across the nation that are shining a light on climate change legislation. On September 12th, Democrats in Congress backed a proposed “Polluters Pay Climate Fund” bill that would require fossil fuel companies to pay into a $1 trillion fund that would give state and local governments more money to fund climate disaster relief. This campaign also coincides with New York Climate Week.

This is the first work from JOAN and Global Witness after winning the business in May.