James Balog Quotes

He (Jeremy Clarkson) is the last man standing on the beach commanding the glaciers' melt waters to go back

The Himalayan Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau have been among the most affected by global warming. The Himalayas...provide more than half of the drinking water for 40% of the world's population...Within the next half-century, that 40% of the world's people may well face a very serious drinking water shortage, unless the world acts boldly and quickly to mitigate global warming.

Everybody was going along thinking that it was a day like any other day, and bang, down went the Twin Towers. Changed everything. So you can't really predict the future, but you can say, "Boy, are those glaciers ever melting." You can measure that, and you can say, "When they're all melted there won't be any Athabasca River," and you can say, "What will happen to the oil sands then?" because you need a lot of water to make that oil. "Where's that going to come from?" You can say things like that.

...in just 25 years the glaciers in the Himalayas which provide water for three-quarters of a billion people could disappear entirely.

And while the ice was melting to form a flood in which I threatened to drown I awoke one afternoon to find that my first northern winter had set.

Warming is incontrovertible, so in general, you're going to have more droughts, more fires. So I think events like that are the best thing that could happen for righting our ship and getting us on a safer course.

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.

What people don't understand about the Arctic is that this isn't just about those other people, those Eskimos that have nothing to do with us. The Arctic drives the climate of the whole globe.

The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.

The bearded iceberg

We now know beyond a doubt that global warming is a reality. And the question we must all answer is, what are we going to do about it?

Historically, countries have made big energy shifts only when confronted with acute fossil-fuel crises: oil embargoes, debilitating pollution, or wars.

The risks brought about by climate change are a major concern. It goes without notice—unless people find out that 12 of the last 13 biggest climatic disorders have occurred in the last 10 years.

It turns out that as the climate changes, the distribution of that water is changing very fundamentally. So now we have too much, too little, wrong place, wrong time. It's salty where it should be fresh; it's liquid where it should be frozen; it's wet where it should be dry; and in fact, the very chemistry of the ocean itself is changing.

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.

There is no debate about whether or not climate change is happening. We will deal with it as a challenge. But we also take it as an opportunity to invest.

Climate change poses tremendous threat to water resources, as there is inconsistency in the rains.

For many years now, ExxonMobil has held the view that the risks of climate change are serious and do warrant action.

Though Africa is not responsible for emitting greenhouse gases, it is suffering the consequences of climate change.

Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe.

I like the idea of going to see the ice caps and the polar bears, because who knows how long they are going to be around for?

As a result of the carbon-dioxide enrichment of the Earth's atmosphere, plants are now growing faster. Furthermore, global warming lengthens the growing season and increases net rainfall.

If you compare Everest photographs in 1953 with its current state, things are melting. I imagine if I were a golfer in Indiana, I'd be hard-pressed to believe in climate change because nothing's going on there. But when you're up in the mountains and seeing the glaciers melt away, it's an obvious physical manifestation of a warming planet.

The direct risks from climate change are obvious: as changing weather patterns cause extremes of flood and drought, hurricanes and typhoons. These damage the physical infrastructure of buildings and bridges roads and railways. They are violent and disruptive.

Americans know our only response in the face of mounting risks from climate change must be the swift transition to a clean energy economy. We do not have the luxury of burying our heads in the sand.