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Garrett Fisher is traveling the world in his tiny blue-white “Super Cub” aircraft, on a quest to document every remaining glacier on Earth.
The 41-year-old Fisher does it for a simple reason: “Because I love them.”
But he does it, too, because of weightier things. Because the climate clock is ticking, and the planet’s glaciers are melting. Because Fisher is convinced documenting, archiving, and remembering all of these serve a purpose.
“In 100 or 200 years, most of them will be gone or severely curtailed,” Fisher says. “It is the front line of climate change … the first indication that we’re losing something.”
So, he’s building an archive of his glacier photography and he aims his efforts squarely at posterity. He believes any documentation he makes before the glaciers’ demise could be invaluable to future generations.
He has launched a glacier initiative, a not-for-profit to support and showcase his work, and he plans to open his archive to the public for research – some now, the rest when he is gone.
Many glaciers are remote and hard to reach or document – forcing Fisher to navigate dangerous environments. Why risk it?
He’s chasing the perfect image; one so beautiful it can make people and policymakers act. And if it isn’t one image, then maybe an entire archive convinces people to come, to look, to get close, and to pay attention.
“We can live without them. We will live without them,” Fisher says. “However, it hurts us to lose them.”
Everything disappears. But not yet. There is still time, and Garrett Fisher has an airplane and a camera and is not turning away.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.