Climate Change/ NOOR/ FINAL

(1993)

(2009)

Tomorrow December 7^th 2009 is the first day of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conferences. The NOOR photojournalist will be hanging their projects showing the affects of climate change in non-commercial places and galleries around the Bella Center where the conference is taking place.

Along with the exhibitions one Danish newspaper has printed 50,000 picture driven English issues of their newspaper dedicated to projects by NOOR. (20.000 copies to be distributed for free inside the Summit Center and 30.000 free copies will be available at metro and train stations, and other public spaces)

The intent of the NOOR photographers is to persuade the men and women in the conference that climate change is affecting our world today and we need change now.

The subjects include: a massive pine beetle kill in British Columbia, genocide in Darfur, the rising sea level in the Maldives, Nenet reindeer herders in Siberia, Inuit hunters in Greenland, a looming crisis in Kolkata, India, coal mining in Poland, oil sand extraction in Canada and the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest by Brazilian cattle ranchers.

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My final project in response to climate change and the projects of the NOOR photographers was to try and find somewhere that I saw the affects of climate change.

These are two images of my friends’ vacation house in Texas. The two pictures were taken about 16 years apart at the same time in June. You can distinctly see how the water level in the lake has significantly lowered in just a few years. This is due to the lack of rainfall during the winter and spring moths and the increase rise in temperature during the summer.

The Union of Concerned Scientists report states that, “global warming already has altered the U.S. climate, with the average temperature rising by 2 degrees over the past 50 years. They are projected to rise another 7 degrees to 11 degrees by the end of this century if pollutant emissions are not significantly cut.”

Another lake that is seeing the affects of climate change is the great lakes in the Midwest. The report also says, “Climate change is predicted to substantially reduce Great Lakes water levels by 2100.”