A global view of Earth Hour
The world turned off its lights on March 26 for an hour from 8.30 p.m. local time as a show of support for tougher action to confront climate change.
A global celebration of Earth Hour 2011 from Nicky Loh on Vimeo.
I was given the assignment to not only photograph the event from Taipei, Taiwan, but to produce a multimedia video that showcased the world’s landmarks without lights as part of the fifth annual Earth Hour.
The Reuters online team in Toronto and I had decided to produce a video to illustrate the event with pictures by our photographers around the world. The idea was to fade before pictures with the lights turned on into the exact same image without the lights on.
Earth Hour: The world unplugged
A combination picture shows Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate before (top) and during Earth Hour March 27, 2010. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch Reuters’ photographers around the world were out in full force on Saturday to capture their city’s landmarks as the lights went out for Earth Hour.
From Beijing to Berlin, before and after photographs were taken and combined into this short video to illustrate the symbolic one-hour switch-off.
I think politicians need to do more for climate change, however i do not see much effort. It is getting very late.
http://www.travertinetilesuk.com
On top of the world with a sinking heart
Nepal’s cabinet meets at the Gorakshep base camp region of Mount Everest December 4, 2009. The cabinet began a meeting close to the base camp to send a message on the impact of global warming on the Himalayas, days before global climate talks start in Copenhagen. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar
Covering a Nepalese cabinet meeting at 17,000 ft was an exciting assignment, but challenging as well. Mountaineering teams, expeditions and trekkers normally take 10 days to reach that height to avoid altitude sickness. I was given just two days to achieve it, carrying oxygen bottles along with appropriate shoes and warm clothes!
From Kathmandu I flew in a small twin otter aircraft to Lukla, gateway to Mt. Everest, the landing a challenge for even experienced pilots as it’s a tiny airstrip. After a night in Lukla, it was a short helicopter ride the next day to Shyamgboche, situated at some 14,000 ft. A night at a luxurious hilltop tourist hotel there provided the chance to shoot some beautiful moonlit pictures of the Everest region.
A view of Mount Everest is seen at moon rise from Syangboche in Nepal December 3, 2009. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar
Next morning the organizers helped us reach the base camp. Since not all choppers could fly directly to 17,000 ft fully loaded, we were ferried in small numbers. A Russian-made MI 17 helicopter that normally could carry 30 people took just 12 at a time to our first stop to Lobuche. In the last hops to our final destination at Kalapathar, the chopper only took eight, another example of how the height challenges technology. At the base camp I used my oxygen mask initially to avoid altitude sickness, but some friends who boasted large chests and strong lungs managed to do with out it. This inspired the rest of us to take off our masks too.
Global warming is, of course, in evidence there as elsewhere in the Himalayas.
The Nepal cabinet more likely meets at Everest once yearly to promote tourism, nothing more. Nepal is a desperate country. It is an impoverished, failed state in every respect. Eco-tourism is its biggest source of foreign income, aside from foreign remittances.
So, I suspect the cabinet meets there to exploit it as a tourist destination, plus to protect the wilderness from tourism’s excesses. Nepal is big on eco-tourism issues.
By the way, the adventure days of mountaineering are long gone, unless you climb the peak. All it takes to get to an Everest base camp is time and money, visas and permits. It’s more a bureaucratic challenge than anything else.
Neither side (Nepal or China) really puts you at the mountain base. You are far from it. Tibet is the easier way up.
DO watch out for altitude issues. And, if take a lousy picture of a clear Mt. Everest, it isn’t the mountain’s fault.
Close quarters with a cannibal
Iain Williams is a freelance Wildlife and Nature Photographer based out of Hobart, Australia. His exclusive photos of a polar bear eating a cub were published as a slideshow on www.reuters.com. Below, Iain recounts how he came to take the photographs. The opinions expressed are his own.
Michael Perry, our chief correspondent in Australia, added a caption that referenced a vast global study in 2008. That study, published here, said that human-generated climate change had turned some polar bears into cannibals
A male polar bear carries the head of a polar bear cub it killed and cannibalized in an area about 300 km (186 miles) north of the Canadian town of Churchill November 20, 2009.
To photograph polar bears in the wild requires considerable pre-planning. I engaged Frontiers North to assist with the logistics to approach polar bears at close quarters in sub-zero temperatures. Before I departed, I knew what I wanted to achieve – images that would help to show the plight of the polar bear in relation to global climate change.
On the day I captured these images, I observed ravens engaged in what appeared to be antagonizing behavior towards a large male polar bear. On closer inspection I realized that the ravens were pecking at bits of a carcass that the bear was consuming. Circling the male bear was a smaller female polar bear that appeared to be exhibiting major signs of stress; her gait was unwieldy, her head was swaying from side to side and she was making continual low vocalizations. It was only after some time that I realized the carcass was in fact a first year baby cub and the circling bear was the mother.
Exclusive photos: Polar bear turns cannibal
(Updated at 9.30 ET on Dec 9, 2009)
Some pictures need little introduction. They stop you in your tracks. These are exclusive pictures to Reuters of a Canadian polar bear eating a cub that it killed and cannibalized.
A global study released in 2008 suggests that climate change has turned some polar bears into cannibals. However, a local Inuit leader told journalists that a male polar bear eating a cub is a normal occurrence.
Some more pleasant views of polar bears:) :
http://www.harveywildlifephotography.ca/ #/north-american-bears/polar-bear-moms-a nd-cubs-2010-2011/polar-bear-family-port rait
Green Down Under
Distance is a bit of an issue in Australia and every year we shoot a number of drought-related features that require us to drive 8, 10 or even 12 hours inland. Out there is where it’s really dry, where some farms haven’t seen rain for five years. Climate change is a big issue in our patch of the planet, which covers Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent, and some South Pacific nations that are at risk of vanishing because of rising sea levels. Droughts are getting longer and the cyclones that form in the Indian and Pacific Oceans each year keep getting bigger. Reporting on these subjects makes us ever more aware of the damaging effects humans can have on the environment.
So we got to thinking: Wouldn’t it be nice to convert our workplace to a warm, fuzzy, green operation and help save the globe? If only we had the money for that… Well, it’s 2008 and things have changed. Reuters Pictures Down Under has charged head first into the Green Era, working hard to save the planet and harder to save money! Of course, we did all the usual things like using less paper, not printing emails unless absolutely necessary and increasing our reliance on digital communication because it means less paper, less ink and less time. The office has also removed nearly all rubbish bins, replacing them with a range of recycling boxes for paper, plastic and so on. Reuters also removed the need for bottled water (which accounts for thousands of tons of plastic and greenhouse gases from transportation, production, etc) by installing chilled water filter outlets in the kitchen.
However, our biggest change so far has been road transport. In November one of our car leases came due. We dumped our 6 cylinder gas guzzler for a neat hybrid, which by the way has more cargo space than the previous road warrior. It’s pretty zippy, feels like driving a spaceship and since we took delivery in mid November have used a little over 6 tanks of fuel… It’s warm, it’s fuzzy, but it also makes economic sense. Our annual lease is A$1,000/year less than the larger car and our fuel saving is expected to be around A$1,600/year. Oh, and as a sweetener, pretty much the whole of the first year’s fuel is covered by the manufacturer’s gift of $1000 of worth of free petrol. We have two pix cars in Sydney so as the price of fuel keeps heading up we expect to be saving about A$5,500 a year on cars alone. Think of the extra feature jobs you can do with a saving like that! Get out there. Go Green. Save dough and save the planet!
Hi,
The photos are amazing and professional. Such photos always inspire.
-
Resident Photographers Blog Expert
-
The Wall
The effects, or impacts, of climate change may be physical, ecological, social or economic. Evidence of observed climate change includes the instrumental temperature record, rising sea levels, and decreased snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in concentration. It is predicted that future climate changes will include further global warming.
Free database of eco friendly companies.