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Glenn Baker and Stephen Sapienza are in Copenhagen to cover the COP15 talk after documenting rising sea levels in Bangladesh. Follow them as they report on the meetings and the Bangladeshi delegation's efforts to draw attention to the real and present outcomes of unchecked climate change.
In Bangladesh, villages must repeatedly move to evade the encroaching sea, and families cannot sell the farmland because saline inundation has rendered it worthless. Others have already fled to the urban chaos of Dhaka, where they seek work as rickshaw drivers or brick porters. It is these problems that Bangladesh brings to Copenhagen with hopes that the industrialized world, whose emissions are at the root of the crisis, will understand the impact of their decisions on the rest of the world.
Glenn Baker has produced more than 40 documentaries broadcast on PBS exploring global security issues. He produced and directed "Stand Up: Muslim American Comics Come of Age" for the PBS series "America at a Crossroads" in 2008, and was Executive Producer for Azimuth Media for the FRONTLINE program "Missile Wars." His productions on underrepresented groups, the military/media relationship, Cuba, conflict prevention, nuclear weapons, and firearms violence have been recognized with more than a dozen national awards. He grew up in India, Turkey, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tunisia, and founded Potomac Media Works in 2006.
Stephen Sapienza is an award-winning news and documentary producer who has covered a wide range of global issues, including the HIV crisis in Haiti, sex workers in the Dominican Republic, child soldiers in Sierra Leone, the Cuban military, and landmine survivors in Cambodia. He was co-producer for LiveHopeLove.com, a web project about HIV in Jamaica that was nominated for an Emmy in 2009. In 2008, he received the Ruth Adams Award for reporting on dwindling water supplies in Asia. In 2002, he produced "Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War" for CNN Presents, winner of a CINE Golden Eagle.
This story was reported for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting as part of the Copenhagen News Collaborative, a cooperative project of several independent news organizations. Check out the feed here from Mother Jones.