The Climate Emergency Unit and Blackjet are using a classic method of communication to deliver an urgent message about Canada’s future.

The environmental advocacy group and the creative agency have designed postcards of iconic Canadian landscapes engulfed in flames and pre-addressed them to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Natural Resources.

“This campaign is built to shake people out of complacency and push the climate crisis to the top of the agenda, where it belongs, before it’s too late,” Seth Klein, team lead at Climate Emergency Unit, tells strategy. “The goal is policy change, but we won’t get there by staying quiet.”

Twelve thousand postcards will be available for free in-store at Sonic Boom and the Type Books Queen West location in Toronto for Saturday’s “Signed, Seared, Delivered” campaign launch, which coincides with Wildfire Community Preparedness Day.

Printable versions, illustrated by Jacqueline Lai of Toronto-based Polyester Studios, will be distributed online.

The Climate Emergency Unit is a David Suzuki Institute project aimed at mobilizing action to confront the climate change. The organization is calling on policymakers to enact war-time scale policies to address the issue of wildfires.

Last year, the blazes burned more than five million hectares of land and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. In 2023, more than 15 million hectares went up in flames during a record-breaking wildfire season, according to the CBC.

Blackjet executive creative director Adam Thur tells strategy that the goal of the campaign is to break through a sense of complacency setting in around climate change as issues of economic and political upheaval pull away public attention.

“We wanted to emulate the classic feeling of browsing postcards in-store, but with a dark twist,” Thur says. “We saw a lot of traction on climate-related issues in the summer of 2023, when large swaths of America’s East Coast were choking on Canadian wildfire smoke … We want this campaign to make people feel that discomfort again and imagine what will happen to our country without immediate action.”

Klein says the grassroots, word-of-mouth approach is an outlet for the public to take action and make their collective voices heard in the face of what can seem like an overwhelming challenge.

“The climate crisis has slipped down the priority list, and people are exhausted. That’s why this campaign doesn’t ask for attention – it demands it,” Klein says. “What polling shows is that a majority of Canadians – and indeed people globally – want stronger climate action, but they feel themselves alone and isolated in harbouring such views. As fire season heats up, we hope this campaign can break through some of that isolation.”