Climate Action
Tales of Change
February 26, 2019
EDN SPOTLIGHT: FLORIAN REBER and TALES OF CHANGE
As part of our new campaign – Artists for the Earth – EDN is profiling the work of artists from around the globe.
In 2018, Florian Reber, founded Tales of Change, Accounts of a Changing Climate in the Alps, an outdoor project to travel on a bicycle through the Alps and transmit, through stories and photographs, how climate change is directly impacting nature and communities. Starting in Trieste, Italy on the Adriatic coast in October 2018, Reber cycled across the Alps to arrive in France at Cannes at the end of November. He bicycled 1,180 miles and climbed more than 35,000 vertical meters and through dozens of mountain passes in winter.
All along Reber’s journey, he talked with local residents, farmers, foresters, conservationists, alpine climbers, athletes as well as other journalists and writers about climate change. To his dismay, the weather that he encountered was consistent with the extreme weather patterns that are the result of global warming. His first days on the road were marked by the end of a severe drought and record high temperatures that left its impact across the Alpine arch, with many rivers and sources in the southern Dolomites completely dried out.
Soon after, he cycled through storm Vaia, one of the largest foehn (gale force) windstorms in recorded history causing an immense forest fire followed by torrential rains, and winds that devastated some of the most beautiful and productive of the Italian forests including several UNESCO world heritage sites, and notably the famous Stradivari Forest. In one day the storm wind knocked down a stunning eight million cubic meters of wood, millions of trees, the same amount harvested in an entire year in all of Italy, and was the cause of several dozen casualties.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp6x7eugLjd/
Undaunted by his journey through the Alps, Reber now plans an expedition in 2019 to write and photograph in the Brazilian Cerrado, a tropical savannah eco-region, followed by a North-South traverse of the Rocky Mountains. His mission: to realize change for a better world.
Reber’s Tales of Change highlights Earth Day Network’s focus on reaching out to communities around the world through education about climate change as well as its connection to extreme weather patterns. Show your support for programs to fight climate change such as EDN’s Reforestation program. To check out all Earth Day Networks Tree Planting Projects visit our global Tree Planting Map.
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