Focus on the Big Picture

by Gregory Mayse
Photographer

The debate rages on… Right versus Left, Greenies versus Corporations, Tree-huggers versus Profiteers. Which data - or adjusted data - are we to believe? One thing is for certain - Earth needs our help.

I have heard my share of passionate discussions, both in the national media and in the workplace. I really do not care where each person reading this chooses to stand on the subject of Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever you choose to call it.

As a photographer, I choose to look at the BIG picture on most things in life, and the question raised by looking at the Big picture is simple - Are we doing things to improve our environment and to protect the creatures who share our little rock that rotates around the sun?

What should matter to all of us is that if we do not continuously make a focused effort to preserve what we have, it will be increasingly difficult for us to survive on Earth. I am not talking about the sudden end of the world according to the Mayan calendar in 2012. I am talking about the continual destruction of our natural resources that we MUST have in order to survive. Do not turn your back on Mother Earth. Her natural ReSources are our only Sources.

When all of the rainforests have been logged, when our water is no longer safe to drink, when we have taken away the habitat and culture of all indigenous people as well as wild animals around the globe, then we may look back and ask “What were we fighting about back then?”

Is this really a political discussion? NO. It is simple. Do you want your children, grandchildren and their descendents to be able to appreciate the things in their lives that we may take for granted? Do you want your great-great grandchildren to grow up and look back at our generation and ask, “What were they thinking?”

The native cultures that were here in what we now call America held strongly to the belief of respecting the sustainability of Mother Earth for seven future generations. What if we dare to take on that philosophy once again? Do you believe we can survive with the global environmental damage being done by some of the planet’s major corporations and governments?

So next time you see an photograph of a polar bear leaping between floating icebergs, or the surviving indigenous people standing in a clear-cut area of their rainforest, don’t just brush it off as another one of those “environmentalist global warming photos.” Instead, let it remind you that everything is interconnected, that the planet as a whole, is a living organism that needs all of its parts to function healthily – there is value in every creature – every habitat – every culture.

We humans hold the power either to make our planet better or worse for future generations. The responsibility was somehow handed to us over the other animals of this planet. I’m not sure if this was the right decision. All I ask is that all of us FOCUS on the BIG PICTURE. If we don’t work hard to preserve our planet now, who will…and when?

A Climate for Life

Fine Print Imaging and Art For Conservation are excited and honored to be working on the production of a traveling exhibit of images from the new book A Climate For Life: Meeting the Global Challenge . Sponsored by the Dean Witter Foundation, the exhibit will open in January, 2009 at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

"A CLIMATE FOR LIFE: Meeting the Global Challenge examines the impact of climate change on biodiversity and focuses on the most important challenges currently facing life on our planet.
With a foreword co-authored by eminent Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson and actor Harrison Ford, and a comprehensive introduction by Conservation International scientists led by president Russ Mittermeier, A CLIMATE FOR LIFE examines the enormous impact of climate change on biodiversity and focuses on how nature itself might provide some of the solutions to this challenge.

A lavishly produced volume, CLIMATE FOR LIFE celebrates the diversity of life on earth, and is a call to action and a blueprint to preserve it. With additional text throughout written collaboratively by leading Conservation International scientists, a nonprofit organization that applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth's biodiversity around the world. the book’s ten chapters cover the most important and urgent issues concerning climate change and biodiversity today.

From intense pressure on already stressed flora and fauna, to the implications of polar meltdown, the book explores the effects of rising temperatures on both the land and in oceans across the globe. That said, the book is not all doom and gloom as A CLIMATE FOR LIFE also examines potential and practical solutions and devotes a number of chapters to exploring existing answers. Illustrated with over 175 photographs by esteemed members of the International League of Conservation Photographers, a nonprofit organization that uses the power of photography to help educate the world and to further conservation goals, A CLIMATE FOR LIFE features images from world-class talents including noted wildlife photographer Frans Lanting, glacier photographer James Balog, and endangered species photographer Joel Sartore.

The book includes eleven photography "features" in which the photographers, as eyewitnesses in the field, are interviewed about their first-hand experiences recording the effects of climate change on the environment. Frans Lanting reports in the book that after photographing the same spot in Africa that was shot 100 years ago “…it’s one of those rare instances where you can see extinction in progress before your eyes.”

Powerfully combining both images and offerings, A CLIMATE FOR LIFE, is the result of leading scientists and veteran photographers contributing their talents to showcase the topics, issues, and challenges that society must urgently face, and the book’s lasting impression is that ultimately the responsibility is literally and figuratively in our hands."

Watch A Climate for Life Multimedia piece HERE!