Earlier this year, aerial photographer Alex MacLean invited me to survey the tar sands of northeast Alberta from the air with him. He’d reserved a plane, complete with pilot, at the diminutive airport of Fort McMurray, the de facto tar sands capital of Alberta. Alberta contains about 170 billion barrels of reasonably accessible oil, the…
Violet Clarke’s home sits virtually in the center of the vast Athabasca tar sands, a colossal deposit of extremely heavy crude oil in the western Canadian province of Alberta. She vaguely recalls seeing the gooey black stuff, which seeped naturally from the banks of the Athabasca River, during her childhood. Her father, a Cree Indian,…
I first met Doctor John O’Connor at the Wood Buffalo Brewing Company, one of the only places to eat or drink at in the tar sands capital Fort McMurray that’s not a chain. O’conner had also invited Laurie McDaniel, a candidate from the New Democratic Party for the Candadian parliament, and her assistant Shannon. (McDaniel…
Hatgal, Mongolia If you visit a Mongolian ger, be prepared for a few things. First, you’ll be served a thin-walled bowl of weak tea. Sometimes it tastes salty. Sometimes the surface glistens with a few spots of fat that’ll coat your lips. It’s always served with milk—yak, cow or camel—and never with sugar. A ger,…
Dalanzadgad, Mongolia Few places in the world are feeling the effects of global warming as powerfully as Mongolia, the almond shaped country located between northern China and Siberia. Mongolia’s average temperature has gone up by 2.1 degrees Celsius in the last 70 years, about three times the global average. The added warmth is drying the…
I’m traveling the world in search of the human face of the impacts of climate change. I encountered a sobering example yesterday, in Carhuaz, Peru. There, I met Juana, a middle-aged woman dressed in a white embroidered shirt, orange skirt and a grey felt hat. One Sunday morning in April 2010 Juana puttered around the…
I’ve never before met anyone as thoroughly optimistic as Peruvian glaciologist Benjamin Morales. I asked him today if his rosy take on life began when he narrowly missed death in 1970. On May 31st 41 years ago Morales lunched near his home in the town of Yunguay. Despite protestations of friends who had joined him…
Steep conical hills of brown sand and stone ring the city of Lima. Massive cement water tanks cap many of the summits, some bearing a slogan of the city’s powerful water utility, Sedepal: Agua Para Todo: water for all. To an inhabitant of the eastern United States, where water is generally plentiful, and where few…
Nearly all the world’s tropical glaciers cap mountains of the Andes. If you wonder why, look at where the highest peaks in the tropics are located and you’ll have your answer. About three quarters of these glaciers top Peruvian peaks providing the South American country with a natural resource of immense value and justifiable pride….
Lima and its contiguous suburbs and shantytowns sprawl between a sand-brown desert of undulating hills on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. Today, accompanied by my translator, Dado, and driver, Juan Carlos, I sped down an avenue that hugs the shoreline. A cliff of crumbly soil impregnated with small stones towered above…
As I type these words, I’m flying 39,000 feet over Ecuador. Shortly, I will land in Lima, a sprawling city of about 9 million people. Lima is one of the cities of the world most immediately threatened by global warming. The city was built on the edge of a desert, one of the driest in…
By Daniel Grossman Quito, Ecuador–For anybody who needed convincing, the Deepwater Horizon accident has proven that tapping the Earth for oil can be hazardous for workers and the environment. But oil wells harm the people and wildlife around them even when no pipes break and no fluids leak. South American tapirs, such as this one,…
By Daniel Grossman Quito, Ecuador–The Deepwater Horizon accident reminds us that oil drilling is dirty business. Ecuadorans know this fact. They’ve lived off, and with, oil for more than three decades. For many Ecuadorans, oil promised riches but delivered ruin. Along with great wealth, for a few, it stimulated political vice and the noxious excretions….
By Daniel Grossman Tiputini Biodiversity Station, Ecuador–Do the world’s tribes enjoy any pastimes in common? Probably not. But one lazy afternoon, four guys raised far from one another delighted in a mutual passion in the forest of the Amazon basin of eastern Ecuador, giving renewed hope of cross cultural harmony. Two visitors to the Tiputini…
By Daniel Grossman Cochabamba, Bolivia–Rarely if ever has the word “Pachamama” been uttered at an international gathering as often or as passionately as at last week’s climate conference near Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third largest city. For most of the week, Tiquipaya, a tiny Cochabamba suburb,echoed with strident accusations against “el Norte,” and loud denunciations of capitalism….