The term “global warming” is misleading. While it is true that the earth’s overall temperature is rising rapidly—and that the preponderance of scientific evidence points to human activity as the cause—what is occurring is much more complex than a general warming. Recent droughts and floods point to drastic changes in weather patterns, as do increasingly severe storms.

While no single event, not even Hurricane Katrina, can be attributed to global warming with certainty, the record rains and storms of spring 2005 on the American West Coast seem to fit within a worldwide pattern of rare weather events—occurring with alarming frequency. These rains in California made the desert bloom as it has not in 100 years, and it filled the normally dry Badwater Lake with a foot of water. On Easter Sunday hundreds of people came to the lake to dip their toes in a singular phenomenon.

I have made this photograph available to the Precipice Alliance, a coalition within the art community working to increase awareness of the immanency of the matter. Your purchase of this picture will contribute to the effort to mobilize people and institutions to alter their ways to insure an earth that can provide a better life for all.

- Joel Sternfeld