James Balog
James Balog
James Balogis an American photographer whose work explores the relationship between humans and nature. Since the early 1980s Balog has photographed such subjects as endangered animals, North America’s old-growth forests, and polar ice. His work aims to combine insights from art and science to produce innovative, dynamic and sometimes shocking interpretations of our changing world...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth15 July 1952
CountryUnited States of America
equipment gets gold guy home merit science star work works
The scientist-community guy may get a $500,000 grant, and if his equipment works or doesn't work, he still gets a gold star for doing the science experiment. For me, there is no merit in anything for doing an experiment; I have to go home with pictures.
itself science
Science by itself is about numbers, and it's about measuring things. It's very important but it's very dry.
age behind front runway short time
At the age of 60, you see how short the runway is in front of you and how long the runway is behind you, and that you don't have much time left.
atmosphere beyond core forty further goes million nature normal outside percent records terms variation
We are now beyond nature's normal variation in terms of how the atmosphere is composed. Nature did something for a million years. It actually goes back a lot further than that, but the ice core records show a million years. So, nature has this normal oscillation within this zone, and all of a sudden, we're forty percent outside that zone.
days earth future happened hours humans months programmed realize time
You know, we humans are programmed to think that big changes on the Earth happened a long time ago, or will happen a long time in the future. What we don't realize is that they actually can happen right now. Right here, right now, while we're alive, in our own hours and days and months and years.
area farmland grew jersey suburban surrounded
I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn't being cultivated.
recognise
It's important to recognise that humans are not the measure of all things... The Earth is the measure of all things.
art context either greater opposites powerful science
When you put the subjectivity of the art together with the context of the science, you have this very powerful conjunction of opposites and together they are greater than either one could ever be.
carry eruption events hang huge manage nature reminded
We still carry this old caveman-imprint idea that we're small, nature's big, and it's everything we can manage to hang on and survive. When big geophysical events happen - a huge earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption - we're reminded of that.
air breathe focused glaciers helped stay
This air we breathe is precious, and the glaciers helped me understand that and stay focused on that.
certain change climate financial includes industrial interested interests partisan primarily seen status turned
Climate change should not fundamentally be seen as a political or partisan issue, but it has been turned into a political football primarily by the climate deniers who have a vested interested in maintaining the status quo. That includes certain industrial interests, financial interests and political interests.
appears carbon change climate humans increased science speeding
Climate change is real. Climate change is being substantially increased by humans and the carbon we put into the atmosphere. And it appears to be speeding up. If science has made any mistakes, science has been underestimating it.
change
Climate change is a really abstract thing in most of the world.
time
Once upon a time, I was a climate-change skeptic.