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Climate Content & Communications

A significant chunk of my career with Asia Society, a global nonprofit, had been focused on telling the stories of global concern, such as climate change and US-China collaboration to tackle this planetary crisis. Years of work, research, development and production culminated in some impactful web launches, exhibitions, conferences and pickups by major media outlets. 
nytimes.com column

“In politics, we can negotiate and compromise. But physics doesn't negotiate and they don't meet you half way...”

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Bill McKibben Climate advocate; Co-founder, 350.org

“No one yet has come up with a political agenda the glaciers might have to be behaving like it is, except that the climate of the planet is changing.”

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Lonnie Thompson Paleoclimatologist

“The melting glaciers should be a similar warning of our hubris — and of the consequences that the earth will face for centuries unless we address carbon emissions today.”

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Nicholas Kristof The New York Times Columnist

“The Martians have arrived. It is in the form of climate change. We have not even begun to galvanize to deal with it.”

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Orville Schell Author, China expert

Sliding into The New York Times

Among my contributions, I designed an interactive photo slider that compares glacier changes before-and-after pixel by pixel, thanks to Emmy-winning mountaineer filmmaker David Breashears. This mesmerizing collection convinced The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to check out our exhibition and write a column. His photo editors were easily sold on the interactive slider and copied one set on their web page.

Read the column and slide across past vs present
Read "A Roadmap for U.S.-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change"

Policy & Advocacy

This policy initiative was built upon the foundation of years of work on the ground and through various media forms about melting glaciers and ecological degradation. I oversaw the design and development of the writing, editing and publication of the report (PDF) and the accompanying media strategy of producing compelling visual content to present the glacier exhibition, invite the media and partner organizations and engage with the general public to raise profile and visibility of the programs.

Glacier Exhibition

The New Yorker wrote on the exhibition’s debut: “It seeks to do something unprecedented: to chart the horrific grandeur of our effects on the planet, from the coal mines beneath our feet to the dwindling glaciers on our highest mountains.”

COAL + ICE is on view at Asia Society New York through August 11, 2024. Plan your visit here. 

Latest info on Coal + Ice exhibition

A Big Shoutout

Full-page ad in The New York Times
Full-page ad in The New York Times promoting the glacier exhibition

Byline in World Policy Journal

Over the next 25 years the "roof of the world," where most of Asia's great rivers find their headwaters, could well deliver an ecological crisis to Asia's billions of people. With glaciers melting away faster than anyone predicted, the people of China, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are confronting the prospect of diminished water resources. Full article

Owned Sites

Be stunned by the mesmerizing collection of glacier images brought back from the Himalayas by mountain climber David Breashears. The site isn't accessible on AsiaSociety.org any more, but here below is the headline video, co-produced with Emmy-winning MediaStorm.

Mini-site: On Thinner Ice

Changes to landscapes and livelihoods

As I wrote in the World Policy Journal, we are not only witnessing some of the greatest losses of frozen water reservoirs high up on the Andes, the Sierras, the Himalayas, we are also seeing the livelihoods of billions of people under threat. Some Tibetan nomads, whom I interviewed, said they had to move 12 times a year to chase after good grass for their yaks, whereas they only needed to switch pastures twice a year a generation or two ago. I felt obligated, and also blessed to be able, to tell the stories of the local people to make the picture whole and complete.

New York City: The Charging Bull
Sea levels projected based on 2C vs 4C temperature rise scenarios as rendered in Lower Manhattan, flooding the Charging Bull
London: The Big Ben
Sea levels projected based on 2C vs 4C temperature rise scenarios as rendered in London, flooding the Big Ben and surrounding structures
Sydney: The Opera House
Sea levels projected based on 2C vs 4C temperature rise scenarios as rendered in Sydney, flooding the Opera House and promenade
Shanghai: Lujiazui in Pudong
Sea levels projected based on 2C vs 4C temperature rise scenarios as rendered in Shanghai, flooding the financial district of Lujiazui in Pudong

Predicting Futures

I just couldn't unsee this series of images on Climate Central, who did a fabulous job rendering out these scenarios for flooded landmarks in a few global cities when the temperature rises 2C vs 4C in the future. 

See these sliders to compare the flooded future scenarios on DailyMail.com.

New/Rich Media

While we are all hosed by oceans of data every day, it takes effort and discipline to make sense it all, digest and take in the nutrients. I like to explore and find new ways of presenting statistical and analytical information. Here below is a snapshot of some of what I have done.
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Thanks for reading

As a species, we have changed the planet. It is time to change ourselves.