Kamil Bialous

1 month ago | montecristomagazine.com | Leslie Anthony |Kamil Bialous

When Cherisse Du Preez smiles, I feel I’ve pressed a hidden button. A deep-sea spatial ecologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Victoria, Du Preez stands on the front lines of climate change’s most pervasive and pernicious effect: ocean warming. And yet, though she’s more informed than most on the state of the planet, a grin wasn’t on my bingo card for a discussion of the defining subject of our lives.

Jun 11, 2024 | montecristomagazine.com | Kamil Bialous

I squint. Sunscreen is finding its way in by way of the outside corners of my eyes as the water runs off my wetsuit hood and onto my face. To rub or not to rub? I duck dive again and open my eyes underwater to rinse out the sting. In that split second, I see another world of colour, and shape, and shadow. Reflections and refractions creating really vivid, deep and intense light, golden, shining through bright green water. I take a picture with my mind, and surface.

Mar 14, 2024 | montecristomagazine.com | Leslie Anthony |Kamil Bialous

Wade Davis believes he may be the only person ever ejected from Harvard’s science library. Far from an ignominy, the incident holds pride of place in a memory more typically concerned with the botanical savvy of rainforest cultures or the ongoing attrition of many of the world’s 7,000-plus languages. But like all Davis tales, it’s a good one.