“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God that he’s worshipping.”

This quote is by the astrophysicist Hubert Reeves. I only came across it recently.

Here’s another quote. By contrast, I have known this one most of my life. You also probably know it, because it’s from the Bible. It is perhaps the single most destructive sentence ever written. It’s the one that reads that man shall “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

It’s this notion of humans’ dominion over nature that has got us in this horrifying mess. But before it really is too late, can we hope for a fundamental reset in the way that humans live their lives on this earth? Can we at least attempt a conversion to a true long-term stewardship?

We need to all become good ancestors. We need to adopt a way of life that reduces the environmental impact that our actions will have on those billions of unborn yet to come.

Can we show that we care about the humans and animals and trees that we will never live to see?

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SINK / RISE: the third chapter of The Day May Break, a global series that portrays both people and animals impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. Except this time, of course, I am exclusively photographing humans, and addressing only climate breakdown, something I consider to be by far the most monumental crisis to ever face humankind.

The first chapter was photographed in Kenya and Zimbabwe, the second in Bolivia, and now, with SINK / RISE, I went to Fiji. Spread across the planet, there is a common link between these countries.

They all are among the many countries that are the least responsible for climate breakdown. Their global carbon emissions are and have been tiny compared to industrial nations. Yet, like so many other poorer countries in the world, they are disproportionately harmed by its effects. The grim irony is that many people in these countries are the most vulnerable to the calamitous consequences of the industrial world’s ways. The entire Pacific region—of which Fiji is a part—contributes just 0.03 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, SINK / RISE mainly relates to sea level rise. For most of us, it probably does not have the same visceral impact as the sight of apocalyptic wildfires that annihilate forest and fauna. Because sea level rise can be hard to comprehend in real time, it is also perhaps hard to understand just how dramatic it will eventually be.

But, as a result of climate breakdown, sea level rise will impact hundreds of millions of humans that live along coastlines and low-lying areas around the planet. For people who have lived in these places their entire lives, to abandon their homes and land, and often their livelihoods, to abandon everything they know, will of course be deeply traumatizing as they search for a new—and likely very different and compromised—place to call home.

At least 90 percent of the excess heat being trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases ends up stored in the planet’s oceans. The resulting warmer ocean temperatures create more intense, destructive hurricanes and cyclones. But also, as the water warms, it expands. And, obviously, expansion equals more sea level rise. The other main contributor to higher sea levels is the melting of the ice sheets. The two biggest ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland hold about 98 percent of the global ice on land, and over 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth. Both are melting much faster than projections. Recent studies by the US and British governments are now estimating that if nothing is done, the high-end scenario is for over three meters of sea level rise this century.

The islands of the South Pacific are especially vulnerable. Many of them are barely a few meters above sea level, and so in time will disappear entirely. Their economies are also significantly based on the ocean that surrounds them. This is why I ended up choosing to photograph in this region of the world for SINK / RISE.

However, unlike in the first two chapters of The Day May Break, the people in these photos—all of whom live close to the ocean in Savusavu, on the island of Vanua Levu in Fiji—are representatives of those who in coming decades will lose their homes, land, and livelihoods to the rising oceans. In fact, some of the people in these photos live close enough to the ocean that they would lose their homes. Serafina and Keanan currently live just a few meters from the shoreline, and, considering how young they are, if they stay where they are, will be among those affected.

(Even though nothing had yet happened to the people photographed in the series, photographing them was still a moving and fascinating experience. If you are curious to learn more about the shoot itself, I write about the production in “The Precious Seconds,” the essay that follows the photographic plates in this book.)

Of course, climate change will also have an apocalyptic impact on sea life. The higher temperatures are going to cause acidification of the oceans to a degree not seen in more than fifty million years. This oxygen depletion and acidification will result in the death of everything from most of the world’s coral reefs to the massive loss of sea ice. And with the loss of sea ice will go many wondrous creatures that rely on it for their continued existence—polar bears and walruses, seals and penguins, to name just a few. However, my focus for this series was on humans, and the consequences for them.

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I have never been able to figure out if I am a negative idealist, or an idealistic pessimist. Perhaps they’re the same, and it’s just semantics. But recently I discovered this phrase, popularized by the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci:

“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

Yes. In my head, analyzing the path that humanity is taking, I can only view our future with an exhausted pessimism and anxiety. But my heart beats with a refusal to surrender. It beats with the belief, clichéd though it may be, that it is always worth fighting on. Our desire and will can overcome much while there is still hope and possibility.

Today, in October 2023, it is too late to stop climate breakdown. This is evident from the speed with which climate disasters around the world are unfolding, more grimly ahead of schedule than even climate scientists’ most alarming projections. The last few months of the summer of 2023 have been particularly brutal. Just in Canada alone, over 70,000 square miles of forest have so far burned. That’s larger than the state of Oklahoma. That’s 25 percent larger than the whole of Greece. Meanwhile, the average global temperatures for September 2023 shattered the previous record by a staggering 0.8 degrees centigrade, an amount so great it has bewildered even the climate scientists. The list of terrifying, record-breaking climate events could continue for pages.

However, none of this must stop us from doing everything possible to minimize the harm and save countless lives. The costs of denial and the subversion of scientific evidence are unacceptable on so many levels: environmentally and ethically, of course, but also, in purely pragmatic terms, financially, because of course the costs now will be nothing compared to paying for the apocalyptic damage in the decades to come. We must vote out of office the politicians who continue to undermine and suppress environmental legislation, who through their actions, or inaction, create a death sentence for the planet.

The list of solutions is long, from a rapid transition to renewable energy to assigning full environmental protection to a significant percentage of the world’s surface and oceans. It is estimated that in order to create a new global energy system, 2 to 2.5 percent of the world’s GDP would need to be spent over the next few decades. This is less than the United States spends on military defense. As a comparison, Britain was spending over 50 percent of its GDP on its military capability at the height of World War II.

We can all do something. It doesn’t have to be on an international level or scale. Millions of small actions accumulate in significance. From what we eat (local, organic, plant-based), to what we wear (no fast fashion), to what we drive, to cutting out single-use plastic—every little bit helps.

I always return to this: it is better to be angry and active than angry and passive. Once we become active, the despair feels less overwhelming. Our actions, no matter how small, can energize and focus us.

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Someone referred to the photos from SINK / RISE as post-apocalyptic. I disagree. They are pre-apocalyptic. We are not there yet.

SINK

So do we resign ourselves to our fate?

RISE

Or do we make the effort and do our damnedest to minimize the harm?

Humanity’s choice.

Our choice.