Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Monday, Jun 02, 2025

A New Exhibition Shows How Trump Is Losing The War Against Climate Change

"Just like COVID, the climate crisis can almost feel invisible at times and is hard to understand unless you are directly affected -and even then there are people who don’t seem to grasp the reality of it."

The United Nations has described the looming threat of climate change as the "defining crisis of our time." Today, as much of the world grapples with the health and economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the stark reality of a global catastrophe is perhaps more real than ever before.

A new online exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center explores some of the immediate effects of climate change in the US by piecing together a web of information about how the current administration is failing to address this troubling reality. The show is part of an ongoing series of programming called Trump Revolution, which chronicles the impact of Trump's policies on global affairs. While the exhibition was originally scheduled to be staged at the center's Bronx galleries, the coronavirus pandemic has forced the show to be adapted for the web.

Here, exhibition coordinator Cynthia Rivera shares with BuzzFeed News the work of six photojournalists featured in the exhibition and her thoughts on how the current COVID-19 crisis can foreshadow the more severe effects of climate change.


Can you talk a bit about the concept behind the Trump Revolution exhibition series?

The idea began when Donald Trump first started campaigning. When he took office, things started to happen very quickly in terms of policy changes and I think a lot of us were still processing the election. To help take account of all of these things, we decided to develop exhibition programming that would use photography to figure out if there was some kind of through line or theme in terms of what we felt like the president was targeting.

Immigration was the topic of our first exhibition and was developed at a time when ICE raids were at the forefront of the news. Next we chose to focus on the climate crisis at time when Trump decided to pull out of the Paris agreement. As the news cycle shifts from week to week, we thought it would be important to bring these topics back in focus and show that these things are still happening, whether we see them in the news or not.


Who are some of the photographers you featured in Trump Revolution: Climate Crisis?

For this chapter, we wanted to focus our scope on how the climate crisis was specifically affecting the US. We approached the topic of sea level rising through the work of Bryan Thomas in Florida, as well as through the work of Katie Orlinsky on how Indigenous people in Alaska are being affected. We discuss the devastation caused by wildfires in California through the work of Marcus Yam and discuss pollution in both the air and water with the work of Stacy Kranitz. Lastly, projects by Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen, partly in Alaska and partly in Russia, chronicle the overall effect of what was happening in the north and how it affects the rest of the world in terms of sea level rising and climate change.

These five key points visually cover in a beautiful and tragic way what’s actually happening. We so often discuss the climate crisis in an abstract manner that can be hard to understand. So we wanted to show the actual people that climate change is affecting and what it actually looks like.


How has the coronavirus pandemic affected this exhibition?

We were able to adapt the exhibition into a digital format fairly quickly. My goal was to develop a website that mirrored the way a visitor would move through our physical space.

At the top of our exhibition page is our timeline, which would have been displayed around the entire top of our gallery space, and from there you go to the individual artist pages that are sequenced in the way they would have been seen in the gallery. One unique challenge of adapting the exhibition for online is keeping the energy alive enough to ensure that visitors won’t want to leave the page. It’s so much information to digest, so my challenge was to approach this quickly, but not so quickly that you miss too many things.

Our last page is the environmental solution and action page. For us, we felt like the show needed a space to show what people can do about all of the terrible things they just digested. These are things that you can personally do so that you don’t feel frozen in these circumstances - this is hope.


From your perspective, how does the current COVID-19 crisis reflect the reality of the climate crisis?

I feel like in both cases there are groups and types of people who pay attention to things like this, but there are also a lot of people who don’t. It’s pretty evident that this country is split in terms of people who actually understand what is happening, which is crazy.

Just like COVID, the climate crisis can almost feel invisible at times and is hard to understand unless you are directly affected -and even then there are people who don’t seem to grasp the reality of it.


What do you hope people will get from the exhibition?

I would hope that within all of the information that we gathered and connected, people will better understand the connection between the word and the idea of the climate crisis. It’s my hope that in highlighting the people being affected by the crisis today ... that they would see themselves within these pictures. That’s always my hope -to help people to empathize.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Paris Saint-Germain's Greatest Triumph Is Football’s Lowest Point
OPEC+ Agrees to Increase Oil Output for Third Consecutive Month
Turkey Detains Istanbul Officials Amid Anti-Corruption Crackdown
Meta and Anduril Collaborate on AI-Driven Military Augmented Reality Systems
EU Central Bank Pushes to Replace US Dollar with Euro as World’s Main Currency
European and Arab Ministers Convene in Madrid to Address Gaza Conflict
U.S. Health Secretary Ends Select COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations
Trump Warns Putin Is 'Playing with Fire' Amid Escalating Ukraine Conflict
India and Pakistan Engage Trump-Linked Lobbyists to Influence U.S. Policy
U.S. Halts New Student Visa Interviews Amid Enhanced Security Measures
Trump Administration Cancels $100 Million in Federal Contracts with Harvard
SpaceX Starship Test Flight Ends in Failure, Mars Mission Timeline Uncertain
King Charles Affirms Canadian Sovereignty Amid U.S. Statehood Pressure
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Founder Warns Against Trusting Regime in Nuclear Talks
UAE Offers Free ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions to Citizens
Lebanon Initiates Plan to Disarm Palestinian Factions
Iran and U.S. Make Limited Progress in Nuclear Talks
The Daily Debate: The Fall of the Dollar — Strategic Reset or Economic Self-Destruction?
Trump Administration's Tariff Policies and Dollar Strategy Spark Global Economic Debate
OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s Startup for $6.5 Billion to Build a Revolutionary “Third Core Device”
Turkey Weighs Citizens in Public as Erdoğan Launches National Slimming Campaign
Saudi-Spanish Business Forum Commences in Riyadh
Saudi Arabia and Spain Sign MoU to Boost SME Sectors
UK Suspends Trade Talks with Israel Amid Gaza Offensive
Iran and U.S. Set for Fifth Round of Nuclear Talks Amid Rising Tensions
Russia Expands Military Presence Near Finland Amid Rising Tensions
Indian Scholar Arrested in Crackdown Over Pakistan Conflict Commentary
Israel Eases Gaza Blockade Amid Internal Dispute Over Military Strategy
President Biden’s announcement of advanced prostate cancer sparked public sympathy—but behind closed doors, Democrats are in panic
A Chinese company made solar tiles that look way nicer than regular panels!
Indian jet shootdown: the all-robot legion behind China’s PL-15E missiles
The Chinese Dragon: The True Winner in the India-Pakistan Clash
Australia's Venomous Creatures Contribute to Life-Saving Antivenom Programme
The Spanish Were Right: Long Working Hours Harm Brain Function
Did Former FBI Director Call for Violence Against Trump? Instagram Post Sparks Uproar
US and UAE Partner to Develop Massive AI Data Center Complex
Apple's $95 Million Siri Settlement: Eligible Users Have Until July 2 to File Claims
US and UAE Reach Preliminary Agreement on Nvidia AI Chip Imports
President Trump and Elon Musk Welcomed by Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim with Cybertruck Convoy
Strong Warning Issued: Do Not Use General Chatbots for Medical, Legal, or Educational Guidance
Saudi Arabia Emerges as Global Tech Magnet with U.S. Backing and Trump’s Visit
This was President's departure from Saudi Arabia. The Crown Prince personally escorted him back to the airport.
NVIDIA and Saudi Arabia Launch Strategic Partnership to Establish AI Centers
Trump Meets Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara in Historic Encounter
Trump takes a blow torch to the neocons and interventionists while speaking to the Saudis
US and Saudi Arabia Sign Landmark Agreements Across Multiple Sectors
Why Saudi Arabia Rolled Out a Purple Carpet for Donald Trump Instead of Red
Elon Musk Joins Trump Meeting in Saudi Arabia
Trump says it would be 'stupid' not to accept gift of Qatari plane
Quantum Computing Threatens Bitcoin Security
×