Short Films on the Environment and Interviews

A visual environmental proclamation. #environment #climatechange #climatecrisis #jameswhitlowdelano

Since 2002 we’ve lost more rainforest to deforestation than the area of the US states of California & Missouri combined. 50% of the planet’s stored carbon is contained within rainforests. Clearing land for oil palm contributes to climate change. Fires, most often deliberately set to clear forests in Indonesia, creates a toxic haze of greenhouse gases. In 2015 alone, at least 12,000 premature deaths in Indonesia were causes by Indonesia’s forest fires. #climatechange #climatecrisis #globalwarming #rainforest #oilpalm #fire #toxichaze #prematuredeath #jameswhitlowdelano

Long journey home from Antarctica to Tokyo, borders closing, during the time of Covid-19. #antarctica #covid #environment #journey #cominghome #quarantine #chile #japan #travel #healthcrisis

James Whitlow Delano is an American photojournalist who has been based in Japan for more than 20 years. Whitlow Delano is known for his work on environmental...

Bolivia’s altiplano is growing hotter and drier. What water there is draining of shrinking Andean glaciers is often contaminated with toxic mining waste or unprocessed sewage. For 18,000 years, the Chacaltaya Glacier filled a basin 30 km (19 miles) from the Bolivian capital, La Paz, and it held the distinction of being the world’s highest ski resort. That glacier disappeared, melting away completely, in 2009 due to a warming climate, six years before glaciologist, Edson Ramirez, the head of a team of international scientists, predicted it would. The Andes’ tropical glaciers are particularly vulnerable to climate change shrinking by an average of 30-50% since the 1970s. Ramirez predicts that the much larger glaciers of the highest Andean peaks, Bolivia’s water tower, will all be gone within 30 years, maximum. Lake Poopo, Bolivia's second largest lake, five times larger than Lake Tahoe, dried up completely three years ago. Millions of indigenous Bolivians have abandoned their ancestral villages in search of opportunity in cities only to wind up living in squalor in urban slums, plagued by crime, gangs and drug trafficking. Landlocked, Bolivia is already the most impoverished country in South America and now climate change and water mismanagement are robbing it of its most valuable resource: clean water.

In May 2019, a zoonotic viral cluster spread like wildfire through a community of indigenous Batek hunter-gatherers in Malaysia. Within weeks nearly 10% of the community were dead. Two-thirds were hospitalized - many for months. Sound familiar? Six months later, another zoonotic virus, passed from animals to humans, triggered by the same relentless incursion into wild spaces, was unleashed but this time it spread to every corner of the planet. This tale of the Batek epidemic is a microcosm for the global Covid-19 pandemic and describes why our global "normal" all but guarantees this will not be the last global pandemic. #environment #climatechange #climatecrisis #jameswhitlowdelano

Prior to teaching at the 2014 Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Antigua, Guatemala, award-winning reportage photographer James Whitlow Delano spent a day researching and documenting the lives and experiences of nearby village Santa Maria de Jesus. Specifically the complex issues of immigration, labor, and the lives of children. While on location, James shared some valuable insights: the philosophical and technical approaches he takes to photojournalism and bearing witness. Through high-contrast black and white film, Delano conjures a rich, silent beauty in his subjects. In 2012, he won the PX3 Award for his photo book, Black Tsunami. See more of James' photos at: www.jameswhitlowdelano.com James Whitlow Delano has lived in Asia for 20 years. His work has been awarded internationally: the Alfred Eisenstadt Award (from Columbia University and Life Magazine), Leica’s Oskar Barnack, Picture of the Year International, PDN and others. Delano’s series on Kabul’s drug detox and psychiatric hospital was awarded 1st place in the 2008 NPPA Best of Photojournalism competition for Best Picture Story. His first monograph book, “Empire: Impressions from China” and work from “Japan Mangaland” have shown at several Leica Galleries in Europe. “Empire” was the first ever one-person show of photography at La Triennale di Milano Museum of Art. “The Mercy Project / Inochi” his charity photo book for hospice received the PX3 Gold Award and the Award of Excellence from Communication Arts. His work has appeared in magazines and photo festivals on five continents from Visa Pour L’Image, Rencontres D’Arles; to Noorderlicht. PhotoWings' mission is to highlight and help facilitate the power of photography to influence the world. We help photography to be better understood, created, utilized, seen, and saved. www.photowings.org

PhotoWings sat down with award-winning documentary photographer James Whitlow Delano to discuss his Everyday Climate Change project, which aims to help illustrate the issue of global climate change. Over 30 photographers working across all seven continents collaborate to create a mosaic of images depicting the problems of and solutions to climate change; as James says, "It's not just happening over there, it's happening here." Visit the Everyday Climate Change Instagram feed: http://www.instagram.com/everydayclimatechange