Quotes by James Balog - Page 1

Once upon a time, I was a climate-change skeptic.
James Balog / Photographer
Skeptic
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I'm quite fond of Switzerland. I love Switzerland.
James Balog / Photographer
Switzerland
Fond
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Climate change is a really abstract thing in most of the world.
James Balog / Photographer
Abstract
Climate Change
Change World Climate
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You can't divorce civilization from nature - we totally depend on it.
James Balog / Photographer
Civilization
Depends
Divorce
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I've always believed that photography is a way to shape human perception.
James Balog / Photographer
Perception
Photography
Shapes
Believed
Shape
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You know, I've read Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' about fifteen times.
James Balog / Photographer
Fifteen
Joseph
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The cumulative effect of each person making a change in his or her own life will make a difference.
James Balog / Photographer
Differences
Making A Difference
Making Changes
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This air we breathe is precious, and the glaciers helped me understand that and stay focused on that.
James Balog / Photographer
Air
Breathe
Focused
Glaciers
Stay Focused
Helped
Precious
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Science by itself is about numbers, and it's about measuring things. It's very important but it's very dry.
James Balog / Photographer
Dry
Measuring
Numbers
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I personally spend the majority of my time by far on outreach and education and fundraising and administration.
James Balog / Photographer
Administration
Fundraising
Majority
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It's important to recognise that humans are not the measure of all things... The Earth is the measure of all things.
James Balog / Photographer
All Things
Humans
Recognise
Measure
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I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn't being cultivated.
James Balog / Photographer
Farmland
Jersey
New Jersey
Cultivated
Suburban
Surrounded
Transitional
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Glacial pace is actually an incorrect concept. The glaciers move a lot faster and they react a lot faster than people imagine.
James Balog / Photographer
Faster
Glaciers
Imagine
Moving
Pace
People
Actually
Concept
Incorrect
React
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Hindsight can be merciless. People of any given era often look back in time and wonder how their predecessors could have been so dimwitted.
James Balog / Photographer
Given
Hindsight
Predecessors
Wonder
Time Look People
Often
Era
Merciless
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Runway
Time Age Long
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When I worked with wildlife a lot in the Eighties and Nineties, I learnt the meaning of patience. And when I worked with trees, I learned the meaning of humility.
James Balog / Photographer
Humility
Tree
Wildlife
Eighties
Learnt
Meaning Of
Nineties
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Opposites
Subjectivity
Conjunction
Context
Science Art Together
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The problem is almost everybody is just recording the world with home photographic toys, not doing metaphor or ideas. We have a photographic culture that's not conditioned to think in terms of symbol.
James Balog / Photographer
Home
Ideas
Thinking
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I've been to the Himalayas a half a dozen times and I love it. I'm just kind of tired of going literally twelve time zones around the world. I would rather go six time zones and get to Iceland or whatever it is.
James Balog / Photographer
Iceland
Time Zones
Tired
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We as a culture are forgetting that we are actually natural organisms and that we have this very, very deep connection and contact with nature. You can’t divorce civilization from nature - we totally depend on it.
James Balog / Photographer
Civilization
Connections
Divorce
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I have often thought that my work with wildlife taught me the meaning of patience, and my work with the big trees taught me the meaning of humility, and my work with the ice has taught me the meaning of mortality.
James Balog / Photographer
Humility
Ice
Tree
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Science
Atmosphere
Carbon
Climate
Climate Change
Humans
Made
Real
Speeding
Mistakes
Appears
Change Science Climate
Increased
Put
Substantially
Underestimating
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Each of us can and must shift our behavior according to our ability. For some, that means changing diet, shopping locally, or putting solar panels on their house. For others, it means using their voice to inspire transformative change.
James Balog / Photographer
Mean
Shopping
Voice
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The 'New Yorker' asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn't the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it's dying.
James Balog / Photographer
Beautiful
Climate
Climate Change
Dying
Iceland
Real
Real Story
Ended
Glacier
Shoot
New Yorker
Wound
Yorker
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Eruption
Events
Manage
Tsunami
Earthquake
Hang
Reminded
Survive
Volcanic
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Equipment
Gold
Merit
Experiment
Go Home
Grant
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There is a glacier in Iceland, Solheimar, which has retreated a great deal, and every time I go back there and see what's not there any more, it does something to the heart. It makes you realise it's possible for a gigantic natural element to just disappear.
James Balog / Photographer
Disappear
Doe
Heart
Iceland
Natural
Time Great Heart
Possible
Deal
Element
Every Time
Gigantic
Great Deal
Realise
Retreated
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Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves an essential spiritual and ethical question: Are we the kind of people who take everything for ourselves and leave nothing for others, or do the angels of our better nature still live? I believe the angels are still alive.
James Balog / Photographer
Angel
Believe
Spiritual
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In some cases, I allow the edge of the set, the edge of my own artificial, artistic imposition, to show up because I don't want to hide from that. I want to acknowledge that there is a living human and a living eye and a living mind and a living heart responding to what's going on out there.
James Balog / Photographer
Eye
Heart
Mind
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Alive
Hours
Humans
Long Time
Long Time Ago
Months
Time Future Long
Future Time Long
Programmed
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Climate Change
Maintaining
Status Quo
Fundamentally
Industrial
Primarily
Quo
Status
Vested
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I've got at least two major project ideas that I've been chewing on for several years in my head and I've been trying to resist them both. But I have learned over the years that when they don't go away and they're still in there, you probably have to resign yourself to the fact that you're going to do something about them.
James Balog / Photographer
Ideas
Two
Years
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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.
James Balog / Photographer
Atmosphere
Core
Forty
Ice
Oscillation
Variation
Zone
Composed
Further
Million Years
Sudden
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I was raised a Catholic as a boy and went to a Catholic boys' high school, a private school, and kind of drifted away, candidly, in my latter teen years. I consider myself deeply spiritual but not in an institutional, religious kind of a way. In Catholicism, we're surrounded by these images of martyrdom and doing penance and doing some suffering to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And I certainly embedded that in my psyche and I have lived that very effectively.
James Balog / Photographer
Religious
School
Spiritual
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Early in my career I discovered that there was something really special about photographing at night that places your mind on the surface of the planet. You’re no longer just a human being walking around in the regular world. You’re a human animal striding around on the surface of the planet that’s out in the middle of the galaxy. We as a culture, we’re forgetting that we are actually natural organisms and that we have this very deep connection and contact with nature. You can’t divorce civilization from nature. We totally depend on it.
James Balog / Photographer
Animal
Divorce
Night
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James Balog Quotes - Page 1

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