Warm Waters

Book excerpt: Documenting the devastating effects of global warming and climate change, Warm Waters is a multi-year photographic documentary across the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, from Northern Alaska to the remote outposts of New Zealand. The journey started in 2013 in Papua New Guinea, where photographer Vlad Sokhin documented illegal logging and deforestation. In 2014, Sokhin covered the rise of sea levels, coastal erosion and the effects of El Niño in Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Nauru, the Marshall Islands and Niue. In 2015, 2016 and 2018, he extensively covered the aftermath of tropical cyclones across Pacific island nations and delved deeper into documenting struggles of the affected communities, their resilience and adaptation to the realities of global warming. In 2019, he documented severe drought in Timor-Leste, caused by the weather anomalies. Warm Waters also looks at other environmental issues our planet is facing, such as climate migrants and their resettlement, permafrost melting, coral bleaching, and the need for renewable energy. The book shows the evidence of fight, adaptation, and hope of remote island and coastal communities. It takes you right into the lives of Inupiat and Yupik people in Alaska, and to the towns and villages that are being destroyed by the sea and coastal erosion on the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. You will see how scientists work in the field, studying the effects of climate change, and how the people, affected by extreme weather conditions, are trying to survive and rebuild their lives after catastrophic events have ruined their land and homes. Warm Waters not only shows tragedy however; it shows the beauty of our planet, communities living in harmony with nature, and people that are tirelessly working to protect their fragile shores from the biggest environmental threat ever they have ever faced.