“Just like COVID, the climate crisis can almost feel invisible at times and is hard to understand unless you are directly affected — and even then there are people who don’t seem to grasp the reality of it.”
The United Nations has described the looming threat of climate change as the “defining crisis of our time.” Today, as much of the world grapples with the health and economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the stark reality of a global catastrophe is perhaps more real than ever before.
A new online exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center explores some of the immediate effects of climate change in the US by piecing together a web of information about how the current administration is failing to address this troubling reality. The show is part of an ongoing series of programming called Trump Revolution, which chronicles the impact of Trump’s policies on global affairs. While the exhibition was originally scheduled to be staged at the center’s Bronx galleries, the coronavirus pandemic has forced the show to be adapted for the web.
Here, exhibition coordinator Cynthia Rivera shares with BuzzFeed News the work of six photojournalists featured in the exhibition and her thoughts on how the current COVID-19 crisis can foreshadow the more severe effects of climate change.