Climate Across the Globe: A Photo Essay

When I compress experiences from the last 6 months the only sensical reality is that in the 8th dimension some giant being decided to pick up a random stone (me) and skip it across some strange landscape...

8 months ago I was ready for a radical change. I decided to follow a near-totally blind path and I made the leap to another world - To the Old World - Europa. To marriage, to new work opportunities, new horizons... I was open to realizing what might be possible, and impossible. The pieces from this journey from winter and now back to summer are still circulating, realizing a shorter night and lengthening day as I do, but still in a fog and fighting for better clarity.

There was intense physical pain these last months, mental and emotional pain, screaming madness - and small spiritual epiphanies - perhaps. There was unconditional love. There was abused alcohol and drugs, an awareness that was far from free. A fallout of lessons and potential, a newly populated landscape of ghosts, broken promises and distant hope. I shook hands with people from at least two dozen countries, without a Euro to my name I slammed champagne and devoured opulent snacks at parties attended by hero activists and UN delegates, rubbed shoulders with next level storytellers, found and lost a dream job in Los Angeles, stumbled across worked and threatened landscapes of three continents... Spent long hours with jets, ferrys, buses, trains, cars, press boxes, on a bicycle, on foot - swimming through this quixotic miasma of wonder, fear, hope, realization, loss. I risked everything and nothing. I cried, a lot.

Perhaps the personal climate is a metaphor for global climate, micro within the macro. Perhaps. I may have zero left in my bank account but I have gained a pirate's treasure of experience. Stolen, collected moments... Now what will I do with all this new-found loot? Dream? Wish? Proselytize? Shrink?

Things happen, for a reason...

Perhaps this unfolding story, its deeper layers, are best told through the ocular eyes of inanimate objects, my albatross and ever-present companions - a Sony A7, a Nikon D700, an iPhone 5s.

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy

How long will it take the US to realize that this is the best vehicle - kid delivery, groceries, commuting, low emission...

With the energy used to create one meal with meat (from field to table) you could make 50 vegetarian meals... 

The Atlas mountains of Morocco, small subsistence farming, a woman's co-op with argan oil at its center...

Glimpses of the past and present. I traded a camera body for a trip to Morocco and the climbing guidebook for a rug

Sleeping outside, sunrise, the backyard - things that make me smile...

Did the world hit the two degree mark two months after the Accord was signed?

Sebastiao Salgado, the Paris Undergound, a whale...

The view from Les Mur Des Scorpion... this picture makes me think of palm oil plantations, big agriculture, GMOs...

The ancient Medina in Marrakech

Cheif Raoni accepts his award - is it true that two football fields of forest are lost every minute in the Amazon region?

Crazy amounts of knowlege right here... Has the world heard what was said here at this tribunal at Cop21?

Photo Essay: COP21 December 11

The deadline for a climate deal is slated for 24 hours...

I spent 10 days in Paris attending events, round tables and art installations in the Green Zone and elsewhere throughout the city and remain encouraged... All images ©Bennett Barthelemy

Indigenous Voices at COP 21

A day of sage and prayers, drums, flutes, banners, and paddling of the Seine River by indigenous from both North and South America. A press conference of indigenous activists giving voice to the rights of the earth... images ©Bennett Barthelemy

Indigenous leaders from South America and the Amazon at a press conference yesterday.

Canoes To Paris

Photo Essay: Paris December 5th, 2015 COP21

It was a good day to attend the Paris Climate talks... It has been great having a partner to shoot/write/interview and film with...

Corinne pedals to create the energy to charge the cell phone

Pedalling to run the blenders for the fresh juice

My new friend, a newsman from Cameroon that asked me to film him

An interview at the Blue Zone of Nina Gualinga, indigenous rights activist for the Sarayaku people of the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Paris Bound for Cop 21

Finding cautious optimism, synergistic momentum and the interconnectedness of many things moving toward my departure to the United Nations Cop21 conference on climate in Paris, now just a few days away...

It will be interesting to see how civil society and governments blend there and find their voices at the event. And even more interesting to see if the bottom to top approach from the global citizenry will take hold in the wake of the talks... And if the necessary synergy and a binding agreement can be reached - and in what capacity.

In the last couple decades I have witnessed changing environmental conditions as a dedicated climber, trekker, wilderness guide and adventure travel photographer and writer.  Glacial ice in New Zealand, Alaska, Argentina, Chile, Peru and the US is clearly shrinking - and temperatures have been steadily climbing in Australia, the Southwestern US, Pacific Northwest - I have noticed monsoon patterns change in Arizona and Colorado, storms become more violent - and now the driest month in more than a quarter century has provided my intro to Copenhagen life. Acidification and heating of oceans, rains coming at different times and plants not being able to adapt, animal and plant populations with narrow windows of temperature adaptability being threatened and looking at extinction, loss of snowpack in the Sierra and the Rockies and exacerbated water issues in the West...

Now in Scandinavia I am constantly aware via local news of the reality of amplified immigration/refugee challenges and nascently swelling populations of effectively borderless Europe. Enhanced turmoil and pressure toward more insulation and less movement toward embracing the larger human community. I think the danger of nationalism is that it can push us further into the us against them mentality and closer to dehumanization... The recent terror attacks and the culture of fear being thrust forward in mass media seems to be enhancing an islamaphobic mentality in cultures already quite ignorant of Islam in general. Seems to be less desire to understand issues and cultures, more knee-jerk reactions and less diplomacy.

With climate change challenges multiplying the number of refugees perhaps even exponentially, jumping arbitrary borders will inevitably become much more commonplace. It intrigues me that as of yet there is still no acceptable legal status for climate refugees - technically they do not exist in the language applied by countries and it apparently was struck last month from the some 50 page draft within the hopefully to be realized COP21 accord.

As I attempt to research climate challenges and the anthropogenic effects - droughts, floods and fresh water and food growing challenges, I find it closely intertwined with the dominant oil and gas infrastructure and it appears that the current wars, migration, terrorists attacks seem to all have solid roots anchored in the global reality of climate change..  Cautious optimism via scientific recommendation to divest as quickly as possible from oil and gas and embrace and build infrastructure renewables/green energy - we know what to do and we have to tools to do it - but the effort required and the necessity to work as a global community in a splintering world seems tricky...

There is a lot riding on this COP in particular... I really hope for some serious communication from indigenous, the global citizenry at large - and that this can drive the continued successes to be realized from a binding and international agreement and the shared voice of a planet and countries in distress...

Here are a few images of some of the more beautiful (and now threatened) places I have ever traveled. All images ©Bennett Barthelemy/Tandem Stills and Motion

Melting glacial ice in Lago Grey, Torres Del Paine National Park Chile.

A calving glacier in the Fitzroy Range, Argentina.

Guding a client on a Colorado Rockies Fourteener

Pacific Northwest kayaker Brenden Wells on the Little White Salmon River

Flowering plants in spring in a very remote part of Grand Canyon National Park.

Guiding a remote trail off of the South Rim in Grand Canyon National Park

Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park

A woman in Peru's Cordillera

Calving Perito Moreno Glacier in southern Argentina

Trekking over a 15,000 pass in Peru

Sea life on a small deserted island south of Loreto, Baja Sur Mexico

Forced begging in Dakar Senegal is a reality for  50,000 youth every day where over half the population is said to live in extreme poverty.

Education and schooling is a luxury that many families in Dakar believe they cannot afford so many children work 

Bicycles and Climate: A Photo Essay

Copenhagen has a reputation of being perhaps the most bicycle friendly city in the world.

As we roll forward into a super-heated world, as COP21 looms ahead and the chance at an international agreement to better realize divesting ourselves globally of the fossil fuels, I quite enjoy surrounding myself with bicycles and not driving a car anymore.

Rain, nightfall, rush hour, being dressed up or even wearing a dress... Rarely seems to slow the steady flow of bicycles.

Bicycles are a ubiquitous part of society here with an infrastructure that promotes bicycle safety and their use with wide dedicated lanes. When going to an event it will list where the nearest car parking and bicycle parking is located.

I am told that to buy a car in Denmark you must be prepared to roughly pay 200 percent tax on it.

At a meeting in Copehangen a few days ago hosted by the French Embassy in Copenhagen, the European Parliament's Office, Nyt Europa to help educate French Citizens living in Denmark on the issues that will be raised at the climate talks at COP21 it was stressed that the actions will largely come from the bottom upward. "You cannot come to the COP without first changing in your own home." Martin Lidegaard - Former Minister of Climate, Energy and Building for Denmark

"66 percent of citizens globally view that adapting policy for climate change will improve their quality of life." Bjørn Bedsted - Head of Danish Board of Technology International

"No climate models look good. Action is urgent - If we decide not to do anything for 25 years it will be too late. It is technologically feasible and economically viable." Dr. Jean Jouzel - IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

I am excited to have the opportunity to go to the climate talks in Paris next month... 

All images ©Bennett Barthelemy 2015