Polar Tales: The Future of Ice, Life, and the Arctic

Description

Polar Tales tells a story about an ice world in transformation, and a planet within reach of its tipping point - the irreversible moment when the climate on planet Earth begins collapsing. This book is both a celebration of the wildlife that inhabits this harsh and most unforgiving and beautiful environment imaginable - mountains, fjords, enormous glaciers, and the seemingly endless pack ice of the Arctic Ocean - and a cautionary tale of global warming. Rising temperatures have put areas such as the Arctic at risk, and the habitats - and lives - of the animals there are increasingly threatened. Set against a dramatic landscape of ice floes and ragged mountains, readers will see polar bears, foxes, seals, walruses, and reindeer that now struggle to live in this vulnerable climate. Images of a polar bear mother as she takes her newborns out for their first hunt, a seal pup only hours old, and the spectacle of the polar night, are reminders of what is at risk. The authors work like no other photographers: alone on the ice with the most dangerous predator on Earth. Spending months in the field every winter on their expeditions, they live among the polar bears, establishing an uneasy balance and unprecedented access to the world of the kings of the Arctic.

Photographer Melissa Schafer and producer Fredrik Granath specialise in the Arctic region, polar bears, and their role in a changing climate. They are based in Stockholm, Sweden, and Longyearbyen on Svalbard in the Arctic. Schafer has viewed the world through her camera lens from her early childhood days in Hamburg, Germany. With a background in creative and portrait photography, she has always had a unique eye for surroundings. A deep love for the Arctic and polar bears, as well as a strong commitment to nature and the environment, is a foundation for all her work. Granath is a leading expert on fieldwork and production in the polar regions. Since 2001, he has been working around the Arctic on his own projects, and also as a producer and adviser for other film and photographic projects in the Arctic, including work for Hollywood film studios and National Geographic. He has assembled unique expertise of working under the most extreme conditions and specialises in polar bears.

"Unless we drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions, we could lose most of the world's polar bears by 2100. Dwindling sea ice disrupts the creatures' hunt for seals and therefore jeopardizes reproduction and survival rates, according to a July 2020 study published in Nature Climate Change. For most of us living thousands of miles from the Arctic, it's difficult to visualize these losses. To illuminate the accelerating struggle of animals that depend on now-melting ice caps, photographer-producer duo Melissa Schafer and Fredrik Granath spent half a decade working in Norway's Svalbard archipelago for their new book, Polar Tales: The Future of Ice, Life, and the Arctic." - Sierra Club