Photography for the future
How do we know the world’s burning? The information’s there to be read in newspapers, magazines, books, scientific journals and online. But it often takes images, captured by people who’ve stood with their cameras in front of fires raging across Australia, California or elsewhere, for us to understand the scale of destruction caused by forest fires and the impact on local people, wildlife and the environment. Likewise with glaciers or water resources, we can read about percentages, volumes and timeframes, but it’s the photographic evidence that hits home, showing us the scale of disappearing ice or dried-up lakes, and what that means.
Photography is vital to our understanding of how our planet is being changed by human-caused climate change. Scientific facts, journalism and the written word are also essential – in an age of conspiracy theories and online misinformation, they matter more than ever. But from fires to floods, glaciers to coral reefs, it’s photos that can cut through the noise and communicate in a powerful way, conveying the severity of the climate crisis and the urgent need for action.
Climate photography is about far more than
