Two decades ago, New York City's Society of Illustrators mounted an exhibition that brought together art and environmentalism. So much has happened since the debut of Earth for Survival: The Illustrator and the Environment that Kate Feirtag and Tara Jacoby, the gallery's exhibition director and designer, decided to create a follow-up show, which they called EARTH: Fragile Planet. It opened this summer in New York and will travel across the country. Take a virtual tour of the exhibition in the slideshow above.

Working together with fellow illustrators and chief curators Jack Unruh and Greg Manchess, Feirtag and Jacoby broke the exhibition into five categories. In addition to the basic elements of air, earth, and water, they paid homage to energy and wildlife (wildlife is by far the largest category in the show). The works represent 120 artists' personal views about the state of the world and the environment today.

Interwoven with the paintings, drawings, posters, sculptures, comics, and videos are large wall graphics and a carbon calculator that remind visitors of their own stake in the health of planet Earth, from how much energy and water we consume in a day to the amount of global warming pollution that each of us produces.

The exhibition appears at the Society of Illustrators through July 31, 2010, and then the curators take it on the road through September 2012. Visit the museum's traveling exhibition schedule to see if it will appear near you. Below, watch the animation "The Memories of a Cut Tree" made by Necdet Yilmaz for EARTH: Fragile Planet.

NRDC is a sponsor of the EARTH: Fragile Planet exhibition.