Tag Archives: Photo of the Month

Photo of the Month – December 2011

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I find the end of the year a good time to look back, contemplate
events and appreciate the beautiful and good of the earth. For some,
the holidays are a time to acquire the latest electronic gadget, to
buy and give new things. Seeing all the flashy advertising promoting
the latest gear, I started thinking about all the once desirable items
after they are discarded; the consequences of conspicuous consumption
and the power of photographs to reveal problems and to force real
changes. The December photo of the month is such a photo. An iconic
image that helped bring about real and positive change.

apple e-waste in china

Like an Exhibit A, this photo helped overcome computer maker Apple
resistance and change the way old computer parts are handled.
At the time the image was created in 2006, Greenpeace was ranking the
electronics industry for the amount of toxic materials in their
products and how involved they were in ensuring their products were
recycled responsibly. We still do. Dell jumped ahead and began to take back all of
their equipment. Apple was falling way behind other makers and
refusing to talk about making changes. Greenpeace decided to talk to
the company through their customers and this image helped them
understand the issue. It shows a colorful Apple keyboard in the hands
of a Chinese child in front of a huge stack of obsolete electronics.
After a year of “Green My Apple” events, Apple finally got the point
and announced plans to stop putting toxic materials in their products
and to start responsibly recycling their equipment.

Published in reports, displayed at news conferences and on web pages,
this image kept the campaign alive and directed. This is the power of
photography to reveal the truth and inspire action

Photo of the Month – November 2011

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By: bmeyers

This image by Shayne Robinson, taken at dawn on the beach in Durban, South Africa, as representatives gathered for the UN climate talks, is the November 2011 Photo of the Month.

Raising A Windmill

I like the crisp silhouettes of people raising a wind turbine set against the drama of turbulent sky and the full power of the rising sun. It captures the concept that by working together, the people of the world can step out of the fossil fuel powered night, and use new technologies to meet our energy needs. If we embrace a clean, renewable future, the clouds of smoke will dissipate and the sun’s abundant energy will shine on a healthy, sustainable world.

So far the news from Durban is not good. Just as previous talks failed to produce any binding commitments to do what real peer-reviewed science tells us is urgent and necessary to limit the impacts of climate change, there is no sign of progress this year. In the United States, with an economy and government completely dominated by dirty energy companies, well-funded lobbyists and their political allies howl at every mention of global warming. The constant drumbeat of misinformation and false promise of drilling in the fragile ecology of the Arctic, distract us from the need to make any changes in policies or even to stop giving millions of dollars in tax subsidies to the richest corporations on earth, even while borrowing trillions to fund government.

Without leadership, vision and the plain truth, we will not join together in this dark hour and do the heavy lifting it will take to build a sustainable future.

October 2011 Photo of the Month

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The October 2011 Photo of the Month by Ulet Ifansasti shows Greenpeace Indonesian activists in tiger costumes in Sumatra, Indonesia, where logging concessions are destroying the remaining habitat of the endangered Sumatran tiger.

Tiger Eye Tour

The complex, diverse ecosystem that supports the last of these amazing animals is being rapidly transformed into the barren, scorched, eroding earth clearly shown in the image. The trees are turned into pulp and paper for products like Paseo and Livi toilet tissue being sold in the United States.

This photo is one of an amazing series that follow the activists around Sumatra investigating the true state of their country’s vital rainforests, and engaging people in cities and villages throughout the region. I like this photo more than the others because of the low angle of view, the gesture of the activist half against the sky and half against the earth with the scrolled burned vine, the texture, the other activists in support. It all works together.

The “tiger” activists write movingly of the widespread destruction they witness, the constant rumble of giant trucks hauling away the trees and what it is like in remainng astoundingly beautiful natural forest. Cakra Prathama of Greenpeace Indoniesia wrote: “The future of our forest is the future of Indonesia.” and called upon President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to save Indonesia’s culture by saving the rainforest and its iconic species from extinction.

Help by asking U.S. Retailers to stop supporting this rapid onslaught.

September Photo of the Month

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A wide seascape with the new Rainbow Warrior III undergoing sea trials
By Oliver Tjaden is the September Photo of the Month.

The Rainbow Warrior III underway during sea trials in the North Sea

 

 

 

 

 

The aerial view captures the new Greenpeace ship under sail on the North Sea,
conveying the majesty of sailing on a broad expanse of ocean.  In the
final stages of being fitted out and tested, the ship is an inspiring
mystery. The wake shows her capability for speed. The shape of the
sails holding close to the wind provides a good view of the revolutionary A-Frame mast system, created by Dutch naval architecture firm Dijkstra and Partners.

The innovative Rainbow Warrior III is an 838-tonne (924-ton) vessel. She is
58 meters (190 feet) long, 11 meters (36-feet) wide, and has masts more
than 50 meters (160 feet) high. Learn more about the ship.

Soon, we will begin to hear from the ship. An onboard satellite
communications system will provide constant broadband access, enabling
the ship to stream live footage from anywhere in the world.

The latest Rainbow Warrior follows in the wake of two previous ships that carried the name around the world. The first lies underwater in a New Zealand cove after being bombed by French spies trying to stop Greenpeace from interrupting atmospheric nuclear testing, killing photographer Fernando Pereira. The second is being converted into a hospital ship to serve needy people in the Bay of Bengal

The new Rainbow Warrior is the world’s first purpose-built, environmentally
advanced, campaigning ship.

Keep an eye out. It’s coming. It’s coming to bear witness and enable action to prevent environmental crimes around the world. As we’re fond of saying, “You can’t sink a Rainbow.”

 

Photo of the Month – August

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Without serious and urgent action, we will disappear. Failure to change endangers our survival. I get the message from the August Photo of the Month: ‘Melting Vitruvian Man’ by Nick Cobbing.

"Melting Vitruvian Man" by Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace

On the Arctic Sea Ice in the Fram Strait near Norway, Los Angeles artist John Quigley, assisted by the crew of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, created a giant display. Quigley said “We came here to create the ‘Melting Vitruvian Man’, after Da Vinci’s famous sketch of the human body, because climate change is literally eating into the body of our civilisation. When he did this sketch it was the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the dawn of this innovative age that continues to this day, but our use of fossil fuels is threatening that.”

In the last century, humans have gone from horseback to the moon, from sheet fed printing presses to video streaming on the Internet. After this explosion of change in a blink of evolutionary time, how can we not use our creative energy to innovate our transportation and energy infrastructures to save the climate?

On September 6, the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre, reported Arctic sea ice reached the second lowest level for the month in the 1979 to 2011 satellite record. Throughout August, sea ice extent tracked near the record lows of 2007, underscoring the continued decline in Arctic ice cover. And there is still more melting to come this year.

With rising sea levels threatening island nations of the Pacific, you have to wonder what kind of events it will take before the masses get the big picture.

Photo of the Month – July

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The July Photo of the Month by Dillon Jenkins shows the oil spill in the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Montana. On July 2nd, an ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured spilling roughly 1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons) of crude oil into the Yellowstone, the longest river without a dam in the United States. Some 140 residents were temporarily evacuated. Oil was reported as far downstream as North Dakota, impacting drinking water for communities as well as ranching and farming operations along its banks for months if not years to come.

Oil containment booms in the Yellowstone River

My mental image of the Yellowstone did not have refineries and pipelines so the spill is a shock. I pictured a wild, clean, cold, swift-flowing stream. On a visit in 1976, I remember thinking that Montana was like Colorado without all the cities and towns.  In 1805, Meriwether Lewis noted the beauty and abundant wildlife in the area. On the return trip east in July 1806, Capt. William Clark camped on the Yellowstone and reported that the bison were so numerous and their breathing and snorting so loud that his men had to drive them off with rifle fire before they could sleep. A view of the Yellowstone River

So things change and communities develop, but every insult to the earth leaves a lasting impact on plant, animal and human life for a very long time. The larger Enbridge Pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River last year near Marshall, Mich., exposed residents to oil, benzene, toluene and other toxic chemicals. The EPA estimates that the cost of that ongoing cleanup is $29.1 million to date.

These disasters should give pause to consider the potential impacts of the proposed Keystone XL expansion of TransCanada’s pipeline network.

The 1,959-mile pipeline would cut through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma to refineries in Texas, and crisscross the Ogallala Aquifer, which Americans living in the Midwest rely on for fresh drinking water as well as vital irrigation that makes possible the agricultural production of the Great Plains. There were two spills from the existing Keystone pipe this May.

Who stands to gain from this reckless gamble with our natural resources? Reuters reports that is the billionaire Koch Brothers, already entrenched in the filthy tar sands oil industry, leading funder of climate denial pseudo-science and post Citizens United major sponsor of pro-corporate, anti-enviromental regulation members of Congress. They stand to reap more billions if the Keystone XL Pipeline Is approved. The losers? Any thing that needs clean water and air to live as well as the people that live near the Tar Sands.

June Photo of the Month

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This photo by Ann Johansson is very different than most of the incredible set of images documenting the start of a worldwide campaign to save the Sumatran rainforest.

A Greenpeace activist looks up at Mattel headquarters in Los Angeles from a police van where she is being detained. The focus is sharp on her face but the reflection of the building and the giant banner are rich and colorful. She appears inspired that “the banner yet waves” after another giant banner that she helped hang on the opposite side of the building in non-violent protest, was brought down in a peaceful, orderly conclusion.

The action was the first in an international Greenpeace campaign that had Mattel’s signature couple breaking up when “Ken” discovers that “Barbie” is causing rainforest destruction. Research revealed that packaging for the doll comes from the rainforest of Indonesia where the last Sumatran tigers are threatened with extinction by the rapid pace of habitat destruction.

Some of the comments on our Flickr photo sharing site and news reports about the action were not kind. Some people condemned Greenpeace for publicly calling attention to issues and dismissed the activists who risked their safety and freedom to bring attention to the issue of rainforest destruction. Commercial destruction of the planet is not stopped by gathering signatures on petitions alone. Global companies like Mattel are looking for the cheapest source of materials for their products. What is cheap to destroy, like the faraway home of the Sumatran tiger, is worth far more to the people of Indonesia and to the earth as a whole, as an amazing, vibrant, tropical rainforest than as brightly printed cardboard, torn up and discarded as soon as a toy is opened. Every child knows. 

Photo of the Month – May – Quit Coal

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            The Photo of the Month for May is a simple cityscape. Like looking in the mirror to find something new on your face, the smokestack of the Fisk Midwest Generating Plant has a simple, urgent command to Chicago. “Quit Coal.” 

Quit Coal on Fisk Smokestack

            It’s about time. Fisk and nearby Crawford coal plants have been polluting Chicago and killing residents for 100 years. They should close.

            And it’s high time we quit blowing up mountains, quit poisoning the air we breathe with toxic smoke, quit poisoning our rivers and lakes with mercury, arsenic and radioactive compounds, and quit pretending that coal is cheap, can be green or clean, and quit ignoring the clean renewable energy we already have.

            The photo shows the smokestack appearing as tall as the city’s highest buildings from the photographer’s vantage point, including the tallest building in the United States, the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) at left.  Mist from an overnight storm curls around lower buildings as smoke pours from the chimney. Everything is blue and gray but for the red brick of the plant and the yellow letters standing clear over all.

           There are a lot of great photos from this marathon non-violent, direct action. Pictures of activists climbing the 450 foot smokestack, preparing and painting the message; pictures of another group of activists dangling off a bridge over a canal to block the delivery of more deadly coal. Lots of action in amazing photos. But the one that stands out the most is the one that puts the message in front of the whole city. “Quit Coal”

Photo of the Month – April

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Looking for an outstanding image this month, I didn’t find one. I found many.

Chernobyl Anniversary Rallies in Manilla, Rio, Rome and Chernobyl

            On the 25th Anniversary of Chernobyl, as radiation continued to leak from the damaged reactors at Fukushima, activists around the world called attention to the danger of nuclear power.

            With an Energy Shift march in Tokyo, amid clouds of Orange smoke in Brazil, with candles in Australia and India, crosses in Italy, masks in the Philippines, costumes in Hong Kong, a simple No! in Mexico and a projection onto the bland sarcophagus of the Chernobyl reactor itself, Greenpeace used creative techniques and the power of people to call attention to the fact that nuclear power is not a solution, it’s a big problem.

            During April, a Greenpeace team took radiation readings outside the Japanese exclusion zone and found radiation levels that expose people in two weeks to the annual maximum allowable dose. The Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, arrived off Japan to investigate radioactivity in the marine environment, but has not been permitted to enter the 12-mile Japanese territorial limit where most of the fish and seaweed consumed by Japanese people are found.

            The Nuclear Regulatory Commission advised Americans to evacuate a 50 mile radius zone around Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant..A pretty frightening advisory considering that nationwide, 1 in 3 Americans lives within 50 miles of a nuclear plant.

 

by Sean Haines

Photo of the Month – Simple Is Best

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Simpler is better.

A Greenpeace vigil in Hong Kong for the people of Japan

This photo taken in Hong Kong by Clement Tang for Greenpeace shows a candlelight vigil for the people of Japan suffering the impacts of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

The focus is on the candle and the hand. The candle holder mimics wings, evoking a phoenix rising from the ashes, but also bears some semblance of the dark nuclear warning symbol lurking out of focus beyond. The eye is drawn to the light but the fear is real and present – the mute, yellow and black warning, almost like a Halloween Jack O’ Lantern.

As in photographs, so in energy production. Simple is best.

Why rely on risky, expensive, complicated processes like nuclear fission when the sun shining on photo voltaic panels or the wind blowing turbines can achieve the same results for less money.

It really is that simple when you add in the externalized costs of other forms of energy production. They’re blowing up irreplacable mountains in the most biodiverse areas of the planet to get at coal and polluting the air and water with mercury, arsenic and carcingogenic compounds by burning it. Nuclear plants rely on billions in government backed loan guarrantees and the unfathomable cost of protecting people from nuclear waste for thousands of years, not to mention the horror of the kind of meltdown unfolding in Japan right now.  

March is quite a month. The earthquake and tsunami are powerful reminders that the earth is a living, moving, volatile environment that can instantly change what generations of people depend on and expect.  This amazing multi-media piece in the New York Times vividly illustrates the destruction in before and after satellite photos.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

While tremors continue to shake Japan, and basic infrastructure is still to be restored, a more insidious disaster continues to threaten the health and well being of Japan and its people. The nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi are spewing radiation into the environment including the most deadly compound ever created by man, plutonium, whose chemical symbol, Pu, does not convey the deadly nature of minute quantities of this unnatural substance.

A year from now, we will mark the anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami. Reporters will revisit destroyed areas that will have been rebuilt and photos will contrast the destruction with the recovery that will rebuild homes, businesses, roads and schools. It’s  impossible to say how much radioactive contamination of land and ocean will remain, but it will be there. Each March, we mark the anniversary of the nuclear disasters of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and now we will remember Fukushima Daiichi. Ancient cultures left us pyramids. We are building giant tombs to incase catastrophic nuclear contamination.

How many more anniversaries will nuclear power give us before we learn that nuclear power is not safe, not cheap and not reliable.