Photographer J. Henry Fair has covered important environmental stories for Discover, from pork farms to toxic fertilizer byproducts. In January, powerHouse Books will be releasing Fair’s book The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis, which includes essays from James Hansen, Allen Hershkowitz, and Frances May. Fair writes:
“Tremendous research has gone into understanding what is seen in these images. Information was gathered from numerous sources: newspapers, websites, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), EIA (Energy Information Agency), environmental groups, satellite images, and other sources within and outside of government. However, even these attempts at exposing the problem at hand can sometimes fall short. Due to exemptions granted to powerful industries, some of the most egregious industrial scars are “off the record.” The notorious Bevill Amendment to the RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) is particularly damaging. For instance, the uranium content of phosphate fertilizer waste is well known, but due to RCRA exemptions, appears nowhere “on the record,” and thus the industry escapes the expense of proper handling. Also, one can only photograph what can be seen; often the most dangerous pollutants are invisible.”
Above is an image from the book showing a waste from a paper products factory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana—aerators have created a pattern in foam on the surface of the pool. This image was one that Fair made during his initial investigation of industrial regions around the Mississippi from the air. Fair often researches a topic extensively, and identifies locations using Google Earth before traveling and hiring a local pilot.
While palm oil biofuel production is a major source of income for Malaysia, clear-cutting the rain forest for the palm plantations also has dramatic ecological and social costs. Palm oil biofuel production growth is fuelling the rapid clearing of the most biodiverse tropical forest in the world, endangering species that need this habitat. In addition, forests contain large quantities of carbon which are released when they are burnt to make space for farming. Photographer Daniel Kukla started photographing the palm plantations in Borneo in October 2010:
“For me, the word ‘Borneo’ conjured up vivid dreams of lush impenetrable rain forests teeming with life. Upon my arrival to the island of Borneo I was confronted by the reality of this place where huge tracts of old growth rain forest have been cleared for oil palm plantations. After many long drives through the countryside seeing only palm plantations, I wanted to see the landscape might look like from a different vantage point. I took a small propeller plane around the southern part of Sabah to get this aerial shot. Despite the strange beauty to the verdant parallel lines and snaking dirt roads, I felt a sinking feeling while I was photographing. So much has already been lost and the plantations continue to eat away into the landscape.”
Established and highly productive stands of oil palm in Sabah, Malaysia, 2010.
The brown squiggles you see here are ice worms making their living on the surface of the Whitechuck Glacier in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. These relatives of earthworms—seen here alongside a disintegrating balloon littering the ice—are found only on the glaciers of the North American west coast, where they graze on algae and bacteria. Unlike other animals, the worms have a metabolism that seems to increase at lower temperatures; they typically die above 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and their tissues begin to break down at about 70 degrees. Some glaciers house more than 250 worms per square foot of ice, but as glaciers in the region recede, the worms are expected to disappear along with them.
They can be hard to photograph, because they avoid light and mostly appear at night. Photographer Ethan Welty: “I’d found balloons snagged on high peaks in the Cascades before, but there was something particularly alarming about the one I found on Whitechuck Glacier, the juxtaposition of the tangly green appendages of the balloon with the delicate black filaments of the surrounding ice worms.”
Ethan Welty/Aurora Photos
