is that there is the potential to actually

take the data and visualize it in some way.

What would three feet or six feet

of sea-level rise look like

in your surrounding environment?

I chose Miami because I realized this is ground zero

for climate change here in the United States.

It's not in the far future.

By the end of the century,

Miami could be completely underwater.

I founded the nonprofit organization

called Before It's Too Late.

We use arts and technology to find creative ways to

educate people and inspire them

on different environmental issues.

We like to do a lot of different creative projects,

but probably the work that we do the most often is

augmented reality and public murals.

Having such a complex production

of augmented reality

was definitely a work in discovery.

It was like, all right, we need

definitely a muralist who knows how to paint,

we need some 3D artists and animators,

we need people who can program.

People can tell this was not just an afterthought.

This is, like, months of work to create something

that is at the maximum of art and tech.

Juan Carlos Gallo: What we're trying to do here is

we're trying to get the people

that interact with our murals

to actually take action.

AR just gives you an incredible palette,

an incredible canvas, that you can really

manifest almost anything into.

It does allow you to create another layer of reality

on top of what you see.

You bring up your phone,

and it's like a window into this other world.

And basically this mural's telling a story

about sea-level rise in Miami

and how we're gonna be affected here first.

In this mural you have two choices:

You can be the change, or you can make no change.

And if you make no change,

then what you end up seeing is

the dystopian future of Miami with sea-level rise,

with the city in decay,

but you can always go back and be the change,

and if you're the change

then you can actually live a life

sustainable with nature.

Cheung: What I try to do is always make sure that

even if it's an artistic experience,

it's grounded in the science.

Everything is obviously artistic, but it's possible.

Levente Juhasz: So, we are at Matheson Hammock Park

in Coral Gables, Florida.

Right now I am standing in water,

and I should not be standing in water.

Just a couple decades ago,

this area would have not been flooded,

even when it's high tide.

This is just one of many examples

where locals in South Florida can encounter

the effects of sea-level rise.

So, here at Matheson Hammock Park we are collecting

data specifically related to sea-level rise.

For example, at the GIS Center we have

unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with sensors, cameras,

so we can deploy these after any flood event

and we can map the area pretty soon

with very high accuracy.

Jennifer Fu: Florida International University is

one of the major research universities

in South Florida,

and we already have an existing large group

of interdisciplinary researchers

focusing on sea-level rise.

Our main role at the GIS Center is actually

to try to apply geospatial technology

to transform what the scientists come up with

into a more visual way so that decision-makers

and the public can digest them better.

Our sea-level rise application

was one of the first ones that came out

to visualize sea-level rise in South Florida.

We came up with a very simple way

of visualizing what's really gonna happen.

If you see this blue

that's occurring on the screen in your neighborhood,

then you know that's water coming.

I really admire Linda Cheung's work.

I think that when we can engage artists,

we can touch our human emotions

and our heart better.

Hers is more of an intuitive artist approach,

so I guess it's a combination

of art and science together

and to work towards a common goal.

Cheung: I think sometimes when there's an urgent need,

such as climate change, that can threaten

the entire fabric of society,

that's when artists start to step up and say,

"I'm not just gonna do art for art's sake anymore,

I have to do art for, you know, this issue."

When you can translate data points into experiences,

it starts to set in more.

I think that's the potential of this tech.