How do you solve a problem like climate change? Some people write about it, some talk about it, some invent things to help overcome it, and some like to pretend it's not a problem at all. Judy Horacek, however, draws about it, which is perhaps no great surprise considering she is well known as one of Australia's most loved illustrators.

A freelance cartoonist, printmaker, and writer as well, Horacek might be best known among parents of small children for her collaboration with Mem Fox on the children's book classic Where is the green sheep? But in her latest work, a book of cartoons titled If you can't stand the heat (Scribe, $29.95), Horacek puts away childish things and turns her hand to the big-ticket issues – like climate change. (And for fans of the sheep, there are some of those there, too.)

"The issue of climate change is to me, and to many people, the most vital and urgent one facing our age," says Horacek in a foreword to the book – her seventh published collection of cartoons. And as she points out, quite a few of the cartoons (not to mention the book's cover) in If you can't stand the heat reflect this concern, and "the related concern about the way global warming is having the severest consequences, not in the countries most responsible for causing it, but in the developing world, where people have so little already."

The 'Hysterical penguins' cartoon (pictured below) is a favourite example, says Horacek. "As with many cartoons, it is funny, but there is a sting in the tail – if only it wasn't so terrifyingly real."

And on that note, we will let the pictures do the talking.

Judy Horacek's If you can't stand the heat, (Scribe, $29.95), is being launched in Canberra on Thursday October 21 at Electric Shadows Bookshop. For more information, visit Scribe online.