![Children work among adults in this area at the base of an operating manganese reprocessing smelter managed by the Chinese company Super Deal. The smelter burns lead and manganese slag and spews toxic fumes across the Kabwe area. Image by Larry C. Price. Zambia, 2017. Children work among adults in this area at the base of an operating manganese reprocessing smelter managed by the Chinese company Super Deal. The smelter burns lead and manganese slag and spews toxic fumes across the Kabwe area. Image by Larry C. Price. Zambia, 2017.](/sites/default/files/08-13-18/larryprice.jpg)
Join the Pulitzer Center and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Monday, September 24, 2018, for a focus on the consequences of global inaction in the face of climate change and on the global health impacts of pollution. The conversation is driven by the work of Pulitzer Center grantee journalists who have travelled around the world to document the stories of the individuals and communities on the frontlines of environmental catastrophes, natural and man-made.
Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer and Global Cities Senior Fellow Karen Weigert join photographers George Steinmetz and Larry C. Price to discuss their work and their chosen medium.
Steinmetz's aerial images show the worldwide effects of climate change from neighborhoods destroyed by hurricanes in the U.S. to Antarctica where penguins are struggling to survive in the most rapidly warming region on earth. Price is traveling the world to record the impact of toxic airborne pollutants that take over 4 million lives each year.
Together, they will consider the limits and the potential of visual journalism on galvanizing the public to act on these issues.
![The Antarctic Peninsula, where about three million pairs of penguins breed, is one of the most quickly warming areas on the planet; its average temperature has increased by five degrees Fahrenheit over the past 75 years. Many scientists believe that this warming will endanger some penguin colonies in two ways: dwindling food and loss of nesting habitats. On the rocky shores of Deception Island, where the penguins breed, they need cold, dry land for their eggs to survive, but rising temperatures have introduced rain and pools of water to nesting sites. And because of the rapid loss of sea ice, krill — the tiny crustaceans that serve as penguins’ main source of food — can’t sustain the large colonies they need to thrive. The penguin population of Baily Head, in the northern part of Antarctica, seems to have dropped from 85,000 breeding pairs in 2003 to 52,000 seven years later, a decline of almost 40 percent. Scientists fear that as warm water shifts farther south along other coastal regions, larger… Media file: 4_antarctica_01_copy.jpg](/sites/default/files/4_antarctica_01_copy.jpg)
Project
Losing Earth
Thirty years ago, we could have saved the planet. The world was ready to act. But we failed to do...