WHY ALASKA | WHY NOW

We imagine Alaska as vast and indomitable. It is neither. Its climate is fragile, and it is heating faster than anywhere on earth. An effect known as Arctic amplification is warming the state at rates far higher than the rest of the world. Glaciers recede. Permafrost thaws and releases even more greenhouse gases. Wildlife habitat collapses. Indigenous villages that have endured for millennia are being forced to relocate by coastal erosion. At the same time, the push to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is placing one of the last great tracts of pristine American wilderness in jeopardy. A failed Arctic ecosystem will have dire effects on the whole planet. Yet when we sound the alarm with degrees of warming, inches of sea level rise, and terms like feedback loops, we become overwhelmed. We tune out rather than take action.

What moves minds is a visceral, emotional connection to the land and to the people affected by the changing climate. Photography can do this.

Carleton Watkins hauled his equipment into the Sierra Nevada by mule and made images of Yosemite that helped persuade Lincoln to protect the valley. Ansel Adams made landscapes that were at once works of modern art and appeals for conservation. Sebastião Salgado, after decades documenting human tragedy, turned his lens to the natural world, asking how we heal as a people if we cannot heal our planet.

The Great Alaska Project continues in this tradition, connecting us to the land, the faces, the cultures, and the wildlife already being lost to climate change and habitat destruction.

This work cannot wait.  Newtok stands empty and the river is taking what remains. The glaciers retreat further each season. Habitat that supported caribou and seabirds for millennia is thinning now, not in some future decade. The project also runs on the seasons, and the seasons do not negotiate. If the autumn session does not happen this fall, the entire year moves.

1. Arctic and global temperature anomalies, 1975–2035. Data through 2025 is observed, consistent with NOAA Arctic Report Card and Rantanen et al. (2022); 2025–2035 is a moderate-emissions projection derived from IPCC AR6 scenario data applied to observed Arctic amplification rates. Chart is illustrative.