Seventeenth-century vanitas are trompe l’oeil still life paintings sumptuously depicting material culture, accrued through expansive global trade, which simultaneously warned early viewers of the futility of earthly pleasure and vanity in the face of certain death. This essay examines contemporary art as adaptations of these paintings, alerting viewers to the ecological threats resulting from unabating and reckless human consumption. By employing visual and conceptual strategies that effectively engage and immerse viewers in artwork, artists of both cultural moments, nearly four hundred years apart, challenged—and continue to challenge—viewers to adapt their lifestyles and values to existential demands. Contemporary environmental artwork re-engages the tensions in traditional Dutch vanitas still lifes between desire and death, awe and shame, presence and absence, provoking viewers towards personal and collective change suited to address a jeopardized ecological environment.