Ice is where we can see and hear and feel climate change in action. Ice responds to the touch of the air and water around it. When it melts, ice declares in a voice loud and clear that the Earth is warming.
Most of the world’s glaciers have been receding and/or thinning as Earth’s climate has warmed. Imagery of this retreat, produced by James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey, provided the general public with the first easily understood evidence of climate change and has played a significant role in shifting worldwide public perception about the reality of the issue.
The dark hours are the best time for an encounter with lava. Night lets you clearly see where the mountain is molten. Night strips away the sky-blue blanket that swaddles our psyches, reminding us of the galactic void always looming above our heads.
Alter earth materials and we alter air. Alter air and we alter water. Alter any of those elements and we alter plant life, animal life, wildfires, all the other terms of our biologic existence. Every breath I take, every drop I drink, every mile I drive: I am in and of human tectonics.
“Techno sapiens is the essential agent of human tectonics in the Anthropocene. Wealthy Techno sapiens societies have impacts vastly greater than less prosperous ones, but nearly everyone living on this planet is a cell in that great heartbeat of Techno sapiens.”
“The pictures become a manifestation of what the animals and I do together. Somehow, they reach through the camera and tell us about themselves, asking us to reconsider the terms of engagement between our own species and the animal world.”
These images are from one of James Balog’s earliest personal projects, as work separate from professional magazine assignments. The pictures became the core of his first book, Wildlife Requiem (1984).
We humans are losing the memory of what makes nature natural. The amnesia spreads from one generation to another as human tectonics gnaw away at the landscape… We find ourselves with no way to remember what we have lost because it is already gone. The great trees deliver an antidote to amnesia, helping us remember to remember.
Fire is a shape-shifting trickster. Fire is foe and fire is friend. Fire annihilates and fire rejuvenates. Fire purifies and fire terrifies. Fire cleanses and fire corrupts. Fire is an agent of human tectonics and fire is the result of human tectonics.
The hour is fleeting. The facts of life on Earth are clear, and I submit them for candid consideration: Human tectonics are changing the nature of nature.
We the people have an inalienable right not just to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but to clean air, clean water, and the security of a stable atmosphere.
Our survival demands it.
Our children deserve it.
These images show James in different aspects of his work throughout his career.
