What makes the extent and severity of climate breakdown difficult to grasp, is that it is, for the most part, invisible. We cannot feel rising atmospheric carbon levels. This intangibility makes raising awareness a challenge for photographers and climate change communicators. However what we can see, and capture, are the effects that a changing climate is having on people and places right around the world.

Along the coastline of Papua New Guinea are stark reminders that many are living with the effects of climate breakdown every day, and the difficult choices that are having to be made as a result. Arriving by sea on the beach in Gadaisu, after three days in the pouring rain at the height of what was supposed to be the dry season, we came upon ‘the lighthouse’.

This huge and ancient tree lying on the ground was a tree older than memory, a landmark for those travelling by sea and meeting point for the people of the village. It was this imposing tree that in fact provided the shade for the celebration of Cool Earth’s partnership with Gadaisu just a few years ago. Now, the latest casualty to rising seas along this coastline.

A village elder recollected playing on the beach as a child, almost 100 metres seaward of where we stood. It worries him that their village will be underwater in ten years; each King Tide in the springtime is higher and more destructive than the last. For many there seems to be one option; move the village away from the water, house by house.

Lying prone, the waves lapping around its topmost branches, the tree’s root ball pointed skyward. It felt that this tree is a stark reminder that climate change is real and present, a clarion call for action, before more of Gadaisu’s identity is lost to the waves.

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1957-2014