My Picture Lies!...(or does it?)

Below is a picture of a popular glacier taken from Environmental Graffiti, a site that shows different natural elements in an artistic or "graffiti-like" style. I chose this picture because I am quite passionate about the environment but some people tend to take their passions too far and insinuate some unsual things. For instance, in Al Gore's documentary, An Inconveniant Truth, some of the pictures he showed in his presentation of receding glaciers and melting ice caps were in fact doctored beyond the actual recessions. I performed the same manipulation below:


The Original Photo:















The Altered Photo:








By manipulating the same mountainous regions on either side of the glacier and placing them throughout the bottom as if the actual glacier had receded, I have made it to look like the global temperature rising caused the glacier to melt and shrink in size. Al Gore allegedly pulled this same manipulation to raise the level of alert about global warming and its effects.

The manipulation was indeed harmful in the sense that it is exaggerating the glacier's recession. However, from an environmental standpoint, if the only goal was to raise awareness and passion about the issue, which is important in our society with how fast global temperatures are rising, then the manipulation seems morally sound. As participants in the environment who use the natural resources that seem to be dying off, it is our job to do whatever we can to help reduce the problem.