The latest years were the hottest ones ever recorded and more and more meteorological cataclysms show how climate change is a present phenomenon. The transition from one habitat to another forces society to adapt itself, to migrate or to resist, impressing artificial mutations on the environment. This project has been developed between the Italian Alps, Israel, Palestine, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and Maldives. This work explore how the tourism sector is reacting to the effects of climate change. Tourism accounts for 10% of world GDP and holidays still represent a status symbol of middle class.  

Millions of visitors are already used to skiing on 1200 kms of the Dolomites artificial slopes . Due to rising temperatures, we are witnessing a shift of the winter season, and in order to prevent an economic collapse, locals have artificially rebuild the “winter”.  

Meanwhile in the last 20 years the level of the Dead Sea fell permanently below the red guard line, and the river Jordan is reduced to a muddy trickle of cloudy water. Climate change is accelerating the already ongoing process of desertification and reduction of the aquifer resources in this area. 

The Arctic Circle ice is receding, and warmer temperatures are recorded everywhere, while larger and more numerous icebergs are floating in the sea. 

In this apocalyptic scenario, we are seeing tourists photographing the dissolution of the North Pole.  

Maldives is the world’s lowest country, and, due to constantly rising sea levels, these atolls risk to disappear soon. But to attract more visitors, private companies are transforming some atolls into a sort of Atlantis, and new artificial islands have been made to relocate people from locals atolls. Pumping sand, higher water temperature and mass of visitor are rapidly damaging the only natural sea barrier: the coral reef. 

With an ironic point of view this project tries to analyze a theme of global importance: the effects of climate change on our lifestyle. 

Marco Zorzanello is a documentary photographer born in Vicenza in 1979. After a degree in Archeology at the Cà Foscari University of Venice and some years of field work as an archaeologist, he dedicated himself to the study of reportage photography with a diploma from the John Kaverdash Institute in Milan and a specialization course promoted and organized by the MoMA of New York. Since the end of 2015 he has directed his photographic investigation to the theme of climate change, in particular its effects on the tourism industry. With the long-term project “Tourism in the climate change era” he has collaborated with all the main magazines of the Italian publishing scene and obtained many international reconizations, publishing with major global media, such as Time, National Geographic, New York Time, Newsweek Japan and many others. This work has been awarded by the ’Yves Rocher Photography Awards and by the 6mois prize pour photojournalisme, as well as exhibited in some of the main photographic festivals on the European scene. Since 2020 he has been collaborating with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the MuFoCo for the creation of the 1900s Italian Atlas of Architecture. 

www.marcozorzanello.com

Images subjet to copyright.