14 Seeing the Climate? The Problematic Status of Visual Evidence in Climate Change Campaigning Julie Doyle New visual evidence of the impacts of climate change was released by Greenpeace in Patagonia today. Dramatic new photos of Patagonian glaciers taken by the research team on board the Greenpeace vessel, Arctic Sunrise, show the extent to which climate change has caused the ice to melt this century, when compared to photos of the same glaciers taken in 1928. —Greenpeace International, “Pictures of Climate Change” The important thing is that the photograph possesses an evidential force, and that its testimony bears not on the object but on time. —Barthes, Camera Lucida As forms of visual evidence, photographs of melting glaciers function as powerful and persuasive signs of the visible impacts of climate change upon the landscape. Indeed, such photographs have figured as vital tools in historical efforts by environmental campaign groups to bring public and political attention to the reality of climate change over the past two decades. 1 Since Greenpeace first photographed the crack in the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica in 1997, images of melting and retreat- ing glaciers have been used both in campaign group literature as well as reproduced in the popular media as proof of the reality of global warming, and the resultant climate change. 2 It would appear, then, that photographs used as a means of documentary evidence function 279 SP_DOB_CH14_279-298.indd 279 SP_DOB_CH14_279-298.indd 279 8/13/08 7:41:47 AM 8/13/08 7:41:47 AM