I'm a retired medical sociologist from the University of Rochester. Climate change is one of the two great challenges facing humanity (the other is nuclear weapons). In writing about the impact of climate change I read reputable books and articles on the topic. So when I make statements about climate change you will see a link taking you to the scientific source(s) of the information I provide.
As for my independently published photobooks, each has gone through several layers of editing and peer review for both readability and accuracy.
This is not to say that everything I say is accurate. Even the New York Times makes mistakes. So, if you find something that is factually incorrect, let me know.
I hope you find reading my blog a positive experience. If you do, please encourage your family and friends to have a look.
You can find photos from my other photo work by clicking on the My SmugMug Gallery tab, above.
Best wishes,
-Steve
The Arctic is warming at three times the rate of the rest of the planet. This will release evermore methane gas and accelerate sea-level rise.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the average global temperature during 2023-27 will likely be the hottest recorded five-year period, ever. Health, famine, water management, the environment, growing mass migrations, and political instability will intensify as a result.
The Arctic is warming at three times the rate of the rest of the planet. This will release evermore methane gas and accelerate sea-level rise.
On a related note, many of you have viewed some of my environmental photos via the many links I have sent from my online gallery. If you would like to see more of these, and some non-environmental photos as well, click here to see more photos of our threatened environment.
Many of Lubec’s residents are dependent on fishing which is pretty common all along coastal Maine. But fishing is endangered as fish stocks dwindle due to over-fishing and the warming of the Gulf of Maine waters (warming at the fastest rate in the world).
Johnson Bay, Lubec, ME
I planned to travel to Lubec to photograph the environment back in 2020, but the pandemic quashed that. My friend and I finally had the opportunity to make the five-hour journey “up” the coast, then Down East (also, Downeast), earlier this spring. The term Downeast comes from sailors in the 18th century leaving Boston or Portland for the Canadian Maritime provinces. During the warm months, the winds typically blow from the southwest along the New England coast. This facilitated ships sailing downwind to the east since Maine’s coast has a relatively sharp bend to the east. Downeast succinctly describes this.
Many of Lubec’s residents are dependent on fishing which is pretty common all along coastal Maine. But fishing is endangered as fish stocks dwindle due to over-fishing and the warming of Gulf of Maine waters (warming at the fastest rate in the world). Fishermen are also facing revised regulations designed to protect Right whales from getting entangled in fishing gear (mostly lobster pots). These regulations will require break-away lines should a whale swim into them, and place several areas off-limits to fishing, depending on the season.
Ship strikes are also contributing to the Right whales’ population decline. To minimize this, lower speed limits have been implemented. Ocean-going ships are required to have transponders so they can be monitored by satellites; such monitoring includes their speed. There are only about 350 Right whales left with less than 70 females breeding.
Besides becoming warmer, the oceans are becoming more acidic, thus changing the world’s underwater ecosystem. Ocean warming has been known for a long time. Rachel Carson mentioned this in her 1951 book, The Sea Around Us. Some marine animals can migrate, assuming there is the appropriate food for them in the new waters, but much marine flora and fauna cannot adapt due to their immobility or physical constitution. The coral reefs are a good example of marine life not able to move, and vulnerable to increasing temperatures and acidity.
The land and waters in the following photographs took millions of years to evolve into what they are today. Yet, in a blink of an eye, we are destroying this environment. As individuals and governments, we pay lip service to protecting the environment, but when there is a conflict between the environment and maintaining our post-industrial lives, we sacrifice the environment. Click on the following links to find some coastal black-and-white (first 8 photos), and infrared (first 2 photos) scenes around Lubec.
Unfortunately, the infrared photographs are not as dramatic as they might be. High, thin clouds reduced the infrared light. A clear, blue sky would have rendered black in infrared.
Black-and-white photography emphasizes form and texture; however, color often distracts from this emphasis. Sometimes, though, color better tells the story as you can see in these early morning and evening color scenes (first 5 photos).
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about living in or visiting Lubec.
April 20, 2023 update: A just released IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report says we are going in the wrong direction on climate change, but there is still a narrow window left to avoid a complete catastrophe to our biosphere, and that includes us.
According to an ongoing temperature analysis led by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), “the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880. The majority of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15 to 0.20°C per decade. . . . . The data reflect how much warmer or cooler each region was compared to a base period of 1951-1980. (The global mean surface air temperature for that period was 14°C (57°F), with an uncertainty of several tenths of a degree.)”
Adding to this are the growing number of methane sink holes, each releasing several giga tons of gas per day. This growing phenomenon is changing all the current climate projections. Indeed, we might already have reached the climate tipping point.
There was time when we believed that we were the center of the universe and that we should have dominion over the Earth. But then Copernicus came along who asserted that the Sun is indeed the center of our solar system, the Moon being the only body that revolved around the Earth. I’m sure you know that this resulted in a bit of an uproar. As for the dominion idea, our use of resources, over-hunting, and factory farming of animals have contributed to climate change and the current sixth extinction. Watch Marvin Gaye’s video, Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology), released in 1971.
The following two photos show a contrast between Greenland’s Tunu Glacier in 1933 and 2013. This melt-back is characteristic of ice all around the world, though melt-back varies widely, depending on location.
Source: The Greenland Ice Sheet – 80 years of climate change seen from the air. / Bjørk, Anders Anker; Kjær, Kurt H.; Larsen, Nicolaj Krog; Kjeldsen, Kristian Kjellerup; Khan, Shfaqat Abbas; Funder, Svend Visby; Korsgaard, Niels Jákup. 2014. Abstract from 44th International Arctic Workshop, Boulder, Colorado, United States.
It wasn’t so long ago that Carl Sagan and climate scientists started sounding the alarm that we were going down a dangerous path. Subsequent climate data has revealed that those early projections vastly underestimated what was happening, since we now know that climate change is not a linear but an exponential process. That is, it happens faster and faster over time.
Via Voyager 1 (click to enlarge)
The now famous photograph of Earth as a pale blue dot was taken on February 14, 1990 by the deep space probe, Voyager 1, from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). The more recent
People often say we have to save the Earth. Not so! The Earth will go on just fine without us. The issue is preserving the current biosphere that supports us and the other higher vertebrates. There will always be life on the planet so long as there’s liquid water. As I present every year, here is my fictionalized account of our worst scenario. Let’s do better!
My partner and I had the privilege of recently visiting her friends in Charleston, South Carolina who graciously invited us to stay at their beach house on Edisto Island. While there I took advantage of photographing some of the area’s shorebirds (seen in the first seven photos).
Nearby was the South Edisto Inlet, also referred to as Dolphin Point. There, several dolphin pods could be seen surfacing as they fed. The easiest way to find them was to look for the shore birds flying low, overhead the dolphins.
IUCN designation: Least concern. Greatest threats are coastal development and pollution..
Like shore communities around the world, South Carolina is facing sea-level rise. This is happening a bit faster on the U.S. east coast due to the slowing of the Gulf Stream. According to Dr. Piecuch at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: …Earth’s rotation deflects flowing water to the right [east]; this causes the two sides of the current to have slightly different sea levels — and the faster the current, the greater the difference. Tide gauge measurements going back 110 years indicate that this contrast has declined, . . . , particularly in the past two decades. The result is additional sea-level rise west of the current.
Edisto Island, SC
You can find out more about the weakening Gulf Stream, here.
Do share any of your experiences about South Carolina’s coastal environment.
Many of these animals exhibit scars on their backs from boat and propeller strikes, if they survive.
I recently traveled to Florida to visit friends and one of our outings took us to Blue Spring State Park where we saw about 189 manatees, according to the park’s daily count. They swim underwater, raising their heads to the surface for air every few minutes. One needs to be underwater to get the best photographs. Many of these animals exhibit scars on their backs from boat and propeller strikes, if they survive. In fact so many have scars that they are recorded to identity each animal, much like the tail fin markings on whales.
Keeping tabs on all this were an Osprey, several turtles, and an alligator.
Manatees are listed by the IUCN as a vulnerable species. This is due to a host of threats including:
Exxon conducted scientific research in the 1970s and accurately predicted increased global temperatures as a result of fossil fuel emissions. Nevertheless, it continued to assert there was no evidence for this.
I recently went out with my Mamiya medium format camera to photograph this lighthouse. It is one of several along the Kennebec River; it is an active light maintained by the Coast Guard. These river lights were designed in the late 1800s to guide commercial traffic through tight turns and treacherous areas along the river.
The late nineteenth century was a transitional time in shipping. Sailing ships were in decline as more and more steam ships powered by coal came into use. Scientists knew as early as the mid-1800s that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas, but the prevailing thought was that the Earth was too large for people to pollute, much less warm the oceans and atmosphere. Besides, fossil fuel power meant profits, and people wanted all the things that it could make widely available. The middle class slowly grew and people saw industrialization as progressive. Fossil fuels were so compelling that most people would not see them as destructive. In fact, we still have some climate deniers, but they have dwindled over the past decade as floods, droughts, and wildfires have ravaged the planet.
People love lighthouses. They are frequently visited, photographed, and appear in many paintings. Many even have gift shops. They are also sustainable. Portland Head Light was commissioned by George Washington in 1791. Many others were built in the early 1800s. While many had to be rebuilt (or moved, due to erosion) one or two times, they are a sustainable means of coastal navigation. Today they are automated, gone is the romantic era of the lighthouse keeper. Will today’s GPS and GLONASS satellite systems (which we all use) stand the test of time?
You will find four more photos of Squirrel Light at my online gallery.
The City of Portland, Maine, among others, are considering dockside power stations so these ships would not have to run their engines for power.
Originally published 11/14/2022
Update: Today’s Portland Press Herald reported on the growing container ship traffic in Portland, Maine. The conundrum is that while this is good for Maine, Portland, and the many benefiting businesses, all this is driven by fossil fuels. Green ships are in our future, but that’s a way down the sea lanes.
According to a study published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, a cruise ship emits the equivalent of about 12,000 autos on a typical cruise. Even while docked, their engines emit more carbon to power their systems than dozens of large trucks. The City of Portland, Maine, among others, are considering dockside power stations so these ships would not have to run their engines for power. Portland can simultaneously dock two large cruise ships, and several cargoes and tanker ships.
Cruise and cargo ships are also becoming far more prevalent in Arctic waters given the summer ice melt and open waters. Their emissions will accelerate warming in the Arctic region. In the coming micro-industrialized period, global trade will dwindle. This is yet another good reason to act now to reduce carbon emissions, lest the environment does it for us.
The two most favored environments for most people are mountains and water. It must be all those positive ions in the air.
Waterscapes, whether natural or altered by humans, are some of my favorite environmental scenes. The two most favored environments for most people are mountains and water. It must be all those positive ions in the air. I recently photographed the first six scenes, shown on my online gallery.
Stephen Fielding Images 