An image speaks louder than a thousand words.
A recent photo series by Peter Essick shows just how true this statement is. In his work from the Foundation for Deep Ecology, Essick shows the exact magnitude us humans have on the Earth in his beautiful and alarming pictures. It’s startling to see the extent of our influence and even more overwhelming when we consider how it will continue to grow.
The Ken River oil field in California (USA) has been digging up oil for over a hundred years:
World’s biggest excavator, Bagger 288, used to extract coal in Tagebau Hambach strip mine (Germany):
Enormous iceberg melting near Svalbard island in Norway:
Fire at oil platform in Gulf of Mexico, April 2010:
Indonesian forest transformed into palm plantation:
Black Friday, Idaho (USA):
Landscape full of trash in Bangladesh:
A remote bay in Java, Indonesia, where local residents, without infrastructure for waste disposal, discard waste directly into streams and rivers:
Light pollution in Los Angeles (USA), which is famously known for having more cars than people:
Coal power plant in the United Kingdom:
Tires discarded in Nevada (USA):
Discarded electronics in Accra, Ghana where locals break open the old equipment and strip them for minerals or simply burn them:
[Featured Image Credit: Peter Essick/Foundation for Deep Ecology]