National Geographic photographer documents human dimensions of climate change
Credit to Author: Derrick Penner| Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2020 18:21:27 +0000
Pete Muller, the photographer and National Geographic explorer, has spent the past couple of years travelling and documenting the human dimensions of climate change and brought a preview of his work to the Globe 2020 conference on climate this week in Vancouver.
Muller explained from the stage that his work digs deep into the emotional reactions people have to profound changes in the environment, theorized by the Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht as solastalgia — the sense of distress feel when home no longer feels like the place they once knew.
He visited Paradise, California, after the worst wildfires in state history. He went to the Russian high arctic where the rapid decline of sea ice is profoundly reshaping how Indigenous communities hunt and travel. In the high Andes of Peru, he photographed people struggling to re-conceive of a spirituality defined by their connection to mountain glaciers that are rapidly receding.
“National Geographic, for decades, has been a standard-bearer for disseminating information about the scientific realities of the world around us and what we’re doing to change it,” Muller said in his presentation, but said he felt perhaps a “human dimension” was missing that he could turn his lens to.
Muller was granted a National Geographic storytelling fellowship for his project, which will be featured in the April National Geographic, a special issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
The conversation below is a combination of a brief interview and questions addressed on stage and has been edited for length.
Q. When did you first hit on the concept of solastalgia?
A. Solastalgia, yeah, I heard it in a documentary film that National Geographic distributed, I want to say that was maybe like the summer of 2016, maybe (2017), but several years ago.
Q. What’s your sort of thumbnail explanation of solastalgia?
A. I’m careful to always credit the theorist (Albrecht) who came up with this, whenever I’m talking about it, because I’m really kind of interrogating his idea. What he would say is, it is it’s the homesickness you have while you’re still at home. The familiarity of the landscape has been altered in such a way that you no longer feel that sense of comfort you once did. But yeah, he would even say the bumper sticker definition is the homesickness you have at home.
Q. From your work, what leaves you despondent, and what gives you a sense of hope, as a species, for the future?
A. What discourages me is the complexity of the challenges. In every place I was able to go to, the challenges were like peeling back an onion. One layer was the physical change, then there were these add-on challenges that are incredibly cumbersome and people, most people, were not prepared to undertake the political and logistical effort to resolve some of the challenges. The hope that I have is that our species is one that is here today because of our adaptability. That’s the underpinning, we have the ability to adapt to adverse circumstances, to a point.
Q. I imagine this is something that, the terminology, solastalgia, might be new, but it’s something that’s probably always been with humans as long as they’ve been altering the landscape. Why do you think this is more important now?
A. You’re right that environmental transformation and the human response to it has been with us from time immemorial. The difference now, is the speed and the scale at which it’s happening. We’re affecting environments at a rate that we never have been able to affect them before. And it’s been it’s multi-faceted. You know, there are all of these different man-made impacts that we’re having, including the fact that we’re growing our population at an astounding rate. So we are taxing the resources and we’re taxing the land and we’re taxing the space that we have, at a rate that we haven’t previously.
Q. You are at Globe 2020, why was it important to you to come and deliver this presentation to this particular audience?
A. I think that the power of photography and storytelling can really help to, you know, humanize conversations that ultimately, when you start talking about market innovation and policy adjustment, can start to feel a little sterile. I think that the power of storytelling, photographic and an oral history, storytelling can really help to humanize these conversations in a way that I, we, shouldn’t lose sight of.
Q. And why is that message important for this particular audience here?
A. I think that at this level, we end up talking about, essentially about trends. And it’s good to remember that there are a host of individuals out there whose experiences are worth noting, by name. These are complicated problems and I think it requires really all of our participation, a wide range of participation and outlooks, to be able to come up with the right solutions.
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