David Arnold ’67 clutched his camera as he paraglided over the Northeast Ridge of Doldenhorn in Switzerland in 2005, exploring the same region as the eminent photographer Bradford Washburn had 45 years earlier. In pairing his shots with those of Washburn, Arnold, a freelance photographer and journalist, captured the region’s climate change in images.
Arnold presented his photographs and shared his passion for global activism and photography with an Andover audience on Tuesday.
“Science has not gotten the message through. Journalists could not get the message across. So, maybe art can do it,” said Arnold.
Arnold captured the loss of snow on Northeast Ridge due to the greenhouse effect when he was an adventure journalist at the “Boston Globe.” His revolutionary images resulted from an article assignment that took him paragliding in Switzerland.
“The climatologists were surprised to see this kind of change between 1960 and 2005. They did not expect it. That’s when my life changed, because jumping off mountains lost all of its relevance to me if this kind of change was taking place,” said Arnold.
Arnold encouraged the audience to become more science literate and conscious of global environmental issues.
“Get angry. I want you to understand that you have a lot of power. It’s you guys that give me hope, so make some noise and make this your life,” said Arnold.
“We have to take this beyond Earth Day. This is not only an environmental problem, but also a socioeconomic, geopolitical problem” continued Arnold.
Since his trip in 2005, Arnold has taken his own photographs of the same `scenes as over 200 earlier photographers in order to document climate change in other parts of the world.
In his presentation, Arnold explored what he has learned about coral reefs and glaciers, in particular. The most challenging aspect of this work, according to Arnold, was finding the exact location the previous photographer captured.
Arnold photographed reefs in British Virgin Islands, Florida Keys, Jamaica and Grand Cayman.
In contrast to the old photographs, most of Arnold’s shots lacked the fish, color and abundance of those coral reefs.
For example, Arnold said that could only recognize the site that was photographed in Discovery Bay, Jamaica, by a metal pole left by a photographer in 1970.
Arnold was upset to learn that the coral reefs were disappearing five times faster than the rain forest.
“I started getting angry. What gives us the right to do this? Just because we can do it, are we allowing ourselves to do it?” he said.
In his work in the glaciers, Arnold photographed the Matterhorn in Switzerland as well as Nunatak, Shoup, Guyot Glacier and Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska.
According to Arnold, the glaciers have decreased at incredible rates within the past few decades.
For example, in 1938, Guyot Glacier was as tall as the Eiffel Tower and as wide as the state of Connecticut but has since receded 17 miles. The melted ice could supply New York City with water for 47 years.
Lydia Kaprelian ’13 said, “[The photos] were a new approach to raising awareness of the problem, and that caught my attention. His presentation was interesting and relatable.”
Junius Williams ’14 said, “I thought the photos were great, I thought the message he was getting across was powerful, but I thought that when he tried to use evidence or present facts and data, it didn’t go too well.”
Arnold’s photographs have been included in Double Exposure, a fine art photography exhibit, at the Museum of Science in Boston and will be moved to the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University later this year.
