Climate change and photojournalism
Some time ago, I wrote a story for The Walrus magazine about the way we visually tell the stories of climate change (I prefer an earlier version of that story that's on my website). These past few weeks, the climate change stories have been out there and visually we are getting to see some of the horror that approaching 1.5ºC warming will wreck on our forests, air, oceans, agriculture, cities, health and economy.
The Time Magazine selection of photographs is heartbreaking and striking. That olive tree, probably over a 1,000 years old, on fire is enough to make me cry. Reuters has similarly harrowing galleries on wildfires, San Carlos reservoir in Arizona drying up, and the Danube waters in Serbia so low you can see sunken Nazi ships at the bottom.
Also, this El Niño is shaping up to be quite something so there will be a heck of a lot more photographs coming your way. I still think that we are photographically covering this as one off events instead of an escalating chain of consequences of our actions. But maybe we'll get there.
I am going to leave you with something hopeful. Sometimes the solutions don't require a technical innovation, but need us to recognize the value of rural work and lifestyle. For example, it turns out that European farmers and shepherds and their flocks of goats and sheep perform invaluable environmental services we devalued.
As always, no paywall and no special paid content, but should you feel so inclined, you can always buy me a coffee.
