05/07/2017
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A few weeks ago, someone we greatly admire, and whom we are fortunate enough to call a friend and supporter, shared these words with us that he had spoken at the Science March in Washington, D.C. on Earth Day. Needless to say, they immediately resonated with us.
Today, as we celebrate Independence Day, we want to share them with you, as we look deeper into what we think it really means to be a patriot.
"I am a patriot.
I fight for spacious skies.
For amber waves of grain.
For purple mountains majesty.
I do that by being a photographer, filmmaker, and scientist.
An eyewitness.
We have met here today, where a great battle for the mind….body…. and soul of this country is being fought.
Among other things, it is a battle between objective reality and ideological fiction.
My team and I have collected real-world visual evidence of the epic changes sweeping the Earth today.
We’ve seen how burning coal, oil, and gas cooks the air we breathe.
We’ve seen how that altered atmosphere heats our forests until they explode in fireballs…
and homes burn down.
We’ve seen, through more than a million frames of time-lapse photography,
how trillions of tons of glacier ice are melting.
We’ve seen that meltwater enter the sea and flood the coastline of America.
Nature isn’t natural any more.
We are in a new age of Human Tectonics.
You and I, and all seven and a half billion of us—are changing the climate,
along with the fundamental character of the homeland that nurtures us.
It’s what the real-world evidence of our eyewitness reporting, says.
But, there’s good news, too.
Each one of can use our voices, and our choice to take us down the road to a better future.
We have solutions.
I submit to you that we the people have an inalienable right not just to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness but to clean air, clean water, and a stable climate.
Our survival demands it.
Our children deserve it.
So, empowered by evidence and real-world truth, we shall fight for spacious skies.
We shall fight for amber waves of grain.
We shall fight for the majesty of purple mountains.
We shall march on these streets.
And we shall never, ever, surrender."
- James Balog, environmental photographer, founder and director of the Extreme Ice Survey and Earth Vision Institute
May you all have a happy, safe, and inspired 4th of July.
