Monday, August 30, 2010

Climate Storytellers

Our government and scientists all over the world have been gathering data and information about the changes that our planet is going through. The format is satellite photos, digital surface scans, site testing and earth bores, and field surveys. Science is the tool by which we can measure what's happening and quantify the changes that are taking place. At some point, this information has the potential to change our behavior, as social media and broadcast/internet media have done.

But this has not always been effective in dialogue about important global public policy. When there's too many megaphones and not enough real content, the dialogue gets lost in the information haze. Debate degenerates into political babble, and the information is not clear or viable any more.

Then what happens when an international photographer and activist becomes alarmed with the destructiveness of climate change that he sees for himself? Subhankar Banerjee has been giving voice to the dying forests and diminishing oceans he sees; he acts as witness to this as the world governments fail to curb the destructive acts of carbon generating energy acquisition. His leadership is emerging in a powerful new climate movement that will no longer allow businesses and corporations to ignore the environmental consequences of their actions. He is calling for a new, engaged climate movement that will act in time to save what remains of the living ecosystems on this planet. He is driving it by sharing his photodocumentation of changes that he is seeing over the decade, and using it as a personal call to action.

He is collecting stories to tell, and this is one of the first to be told.

The urgency increases as the ecological situation deteriorates. An alarm raised by Jim Garrison tells us to prepare for frequent climate catastrophes now that the tipping point has passed.