12 Views of a Warming World

Climate change is here, but from day to day, it may be hard to tell.

The changes are incrementally small—small enough to easily explain away. One extremely hot summer could be just a fluke. An outrageous rain that floods streets is striking, but likely isolated. We live in a time when some countries are actively covering their glaciers to prevent melt, while others drill into oil reserves with reckless abandon. 

But taken in sum, these flukes add up to something more. Sometimes you have to see it to believe it.

Shown here are twelve ecosystems already affected by climate change. Global warming is already disrupting food chains. It’s spurring extreme weather events. Our continuous assualt on the natural environment has some ugly ramifications that we can't ignore.  It’s jeopardizing the resources that birds, other wildlife, and we humans need to survive.

These arresting images show some of the most striking effects of climate change already underway.

Believe it. 

Famished: San Diego, California

Flooded: Dorchester County, Maryland

Covered: Rhone Glacier, Switzerland

Punctured: Antarctic Ice Sheet

Fracked: Bakken Shale, North Dakota

Disbanded: Central Highlands of Iceland

Overstocked: Arizona

Drained: Baja California, Mexico

Blighted: Central British Columbia

Torched: Rancho Santa Margarita, California

Melted: Chukchi Sea, Arctic

Starved: Novaya Zemlya Island, Russia