By Pender Bauhan

Jon boat on the James River. Photo credit: Pender Bauhan.

There are two things that I love most in this world, and they are the outdoors and photography. Ever since I was a young girl, I could always be found outside playing. I grew up in Aspen, Colorado, skiing, biking, and hiking. I moved to Virginia when I was eight years old, where my love for the James River emerged. I even bought a little jon boat to travel the channels of the river with my friends. I was always in nature, and my love for our beautiful earth never ceased to waiver. It only got stronger. I spent my summers backpacking the mountain ranges of the Rockies, the Blue Ridge, and the Spanish Pyrenees. I spent my time in various environmental camps and programs. I took environmental sciences and biology classes in high school. I couldn’t get enough of the outdoors. But along my journey, I discovered a fatal flaw. I learned that our world is facing many challenges. And the destructive cause for this circumstance is me, my friends, family, acquaintances, strangers, everybody. The beautiful lands, waters, skies, pastures, trees, flowers, are all experiencing great strains due to climate change. 

The term climate change appears in everyday conversation, but what does it really mean? Climate change is when precipitation, temperature, wind patterns, and storm patterns change over a period of time in an area. Earth is currently experiencing these various changes at a rapid pace. Hurricanes are becoming more common and more dangerous. Temperatures are hitting record highs. Droughts are much more common around the world, including in America’s Midwest and Southwest. Wildfires ravage our nation and others. These intense climate change symptoms are transforming the land that so many animals inhabit, including our own species. Changes in climate are natural, but the rate at which these changes are developing and the extremity of the changes why we are in an era of  anthropomorphic climate change—caused by humans. 

One of the main causes of climate change is global warming. This is the increase in earth’s overall average temperature. Global average temperatures have always fluctuated throughout history, but over the last century, average temperatures have exponentially increased. The average temperature has increased 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit just in the last 100 years. This small number is the driving factor behind climate change. The earth works in a way that traps gases inside its atmosphere in order to heat Earth’s surface. But due to increased levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the atmosphere has been unable to easily release the heat, so the overall average temperature of the Earth is increasing. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide. The increase in the gases is attributed mainly to human activity and the burning of fossil fuels. This non-renewable energy source releases extreme amounts of carbon, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Examples of this source of energy include oil, coal, and natural gas. As the population increases, the need for more fossil fuels does, too. The highest previous concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was 300 parts per million (ppm), which accrued over 250,000 years ago. Until 2019, the carbon dioxide levels had never passed that number. That year, the carbon dioxide was measured to be 409.8 ppm, the highest level ever recorded. 

Fossil fuels are made up of fossilized remains from millions of years ago, extracted from Earth’s surface via mining and drilling. Not only is the burning of fossil fuels very dangerous to our environment, but the act of mining can lead to many fatalities and illnesses. Certain mining techniques, like strip mining and mountain-top removal, destroy the land, as they require the removal of trees, plants, and soil. At least 1.4 million acres of land have been impacted by the mining industry. Not only does mining destroy the land in direct use, it can also disrupt land in surrounding areas by creating prime situations for mudslides, landslides, and flash floods. Drilling can lead to groundwater or ocean contamination. Oil spills that happen offshore pollute the oceans and kill various sea creatures, and onshore spills pollute waterways and soil, affecting plant growth. 

Because of climate change and global warming, climate in North America and around the world is expected to become more severe in the coming decades. According to U.S. Global Change Research Program, sea levels are expected to rise one to eight feet by 2100 due to an increase in global warming, posing a threat to many coastal communities. According to the Research Program, “Widespread reductions in mean snowfall across North America with earlier snowmelt at altitudes high enough for snow, [and] disruptions in western U.S. water delivery systems are expected to lead to more frequent hydrological drought conditions.” Furthermore, forest fires have experienced a drastic increase in North America, specifically in the West. A simple imbalance between “temperature, soil moisture, relative humidity, wind speed, and vegetation (fuel density)” can start a fire and destroy massive amounts of land and wildlife. States such as Oregon, California, and Colorado have been struggling with wildfire disasters in recent years. It is astonishing how much we humans, just by burning fossil fuels, can impact so much the precious and fragile environment. 

Fossil fuels aren’t the only way to power this Earth. There are alternatives that are renewable and sustainable, such as solar power and wind power. All of these decrease the levels of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere. Solar use in America has increased significantly in recent years, but it still needs to grow more to flatten the curve of fossil fuel use. Steps need to be taken to converting our methods of energy use from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. 

It’s dawned on me that media and photography is a way to spread ideas and awareness about climate change. After learning about and witnessing the destruction of earth’s natural habitats and resources, I discovered how photography could be used as a tool to inform people. I realized that a useful tool to combat climate change is art. Due to its ability to catch people’s attention and draw one’s interest, photography is a way to spread awareness about climate change and global warming. 

My obsession with photography began in my tenth grade Fundamentals of Photography class with Upper School photography teacher Taylor Dabney. I fell in love with documenting nature, sunsets, trees, greenness, and flowers. During this semester of creative learning, I rediscovered the art of an old family friend, Peter McBride. McBride is an avid environmentalist based in Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado who looks at climate change through the lens of photography and filmography. He has used these tools to spread awareness about the extreme nature of what is happening to earth’s lands and waters, specifically the Colorado River and its watershed, which includes land from seven western US states and two Mexican states. McBride uses his art to show how much the river and surrounding lands are struggling because of climate change and global warming. 

Peter McBride. Photo credit: Dana Belcher/National Park Service.

McBride decided to explore the environment and the waterways by traveling the entire Colorado River and the Grand Canyon himself. He used his camera as a lens for the people to see what has happened to Colorado’s watershed, which is essential to farming and development in the Southwest. McBride has given talks and has directed and written various films, and he is the co-author of the book The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict. One of his films, Chasing Water, documents his journey from the mouth of the Colorado River to its delta in Mexico in 2008. Along his way, he learns and sees all the different ways that the grand river contributes to everyone’s daily life. Whether for agriculture, recreation, or simply drinking water, the Colorado River has been over-tapped and carried away to populated cities and surrounding communities. His photographs and films are eye-opening, first-hand accounts of what is happening to nature. 

The Colorado River supplies two-thirds of its water to irrigation and the other third to urban areas, evaporation into the atmosphere, or water to stream-side vegetation. There are many different types of irrigation used in the Colorado basin, so irrigation takes so much of the water that is drying up the river. The most eco-friendly type of irrigation is called drip irrigation. Drip irrigation is a system of tubes with holes that release bits of water into the fields. This system saves water and uses it in a conservative and sustainable way. Urban areas that take from this source of water use a system of aqueducts and pumps to transport the water. The Colorado River is also used as sources of energy, as it has been dammed in various spots along the river to be used as a source of electricity and energy. This is destructive to the fish population, as fish are unable to migrate the waterways, but also it creates flooding upstream and increased water pollution due to construction and human recreation in the resulting reservoirs, such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell. 

Colorado River delta. Photo credit: Peter McBride.

On his journey, McBride documented various areas that use the Colorado River. As he traveled further south, the river became depleted, polluted, and to the point where it was non-existent—a dry river bed. McBride describes what he saw that “once was the Colorado River which looks far from a river and more like a desert.” Climate change is decreasing snowfall and leading to less snowpack and snowmelt in the Rockies, which supply the Colorado River. Human activity is then overusing the already-depleted water source, and the result is painful to see. The river that once ran to the ocean stops many miles short of it. The Colorado River hasn’t reached the sea in Mexico’s Gulf of California since 1998. Where the delta is dried and cracked once stood luscious green trees and water for miles. In McBride’s book, he says, “As I finally learned during that trip where the heavily diverted, damed, recreated, farmed, and litigated Colorado River in fact ends, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps one day snowmelt would still traverse our family’s Colorado ranch and again flow across the cracked earth delta.” 

The Colorado River basin. Image credit: Shannon1 via Wikimedia Commons.

McBride is spreading awareness about the environment and its struggling story in “hope that this photographic record will remind people of the beauty this American treasure [the Colorado River] we are all so blessed to share. More importantly, [he] hopes these images will inspire future protection of water and habitat throughout the Colorado River Basin.” But it is no use if action is not taken. President Joe Biden has taken steps to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and helping lower Earth’s average temperature. The US has rejoined the Paris Agreement, an international agreement that sets goals for the international community regarding climate change. He has set goals for the country to be carbon neutral by 2050. In order for this to happen, renewable energy like solar and wind would have to overtake the use of fossil fuels. Furthermore, cars would need to become mostly electric and battery-powered. According to journalist Lauren Sommers from NPR, “reversing the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks could potentially take years. The administration will also need the cooperation of Congress to dramatically increase investment in climate policies. Biden says even without Congress, climate will be a priority across all federal agencies.”