Water is a miraculous molecule. With earth as its perfect playground, it can shift with ease from gas to liquid to solid--a feat not replicated by any other molecule I know of. The movie, Chasing Ice, which played last night at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival and will repeat tonight (Saturday, Feb. 2) at 7pm, shows water's dazzling manifestations in the solid realm--an increasingly endangered state as human-caused global warming sends glaciers and ice caps into rapid retreat.
National Geographic photographer James Balog leads an expedition to mount time-lapse cameras on mountainsides overlooking some of the earth's remaining glaciers to track their decline. Reaching remote locations to take such dazzling photos takes a toll on Balog's knees, a theme that parallels the radical destruction of glaciers worldwide throughout the movie. Whether it's Balog abusing his knees yet again after three surgeries, or humanity abusing the planet, clear evidence of a problem doesn't prompt any change in behavior. We're glad he persists, though, because the resulting images capture a compelling mixture of beauty and environmental travesty. His willingness to sacrifice can be seen as a comment on humanity's dilemma--either we willingly sacrifice now by greatly reducing energy use, or we are forced to sacrifice later as a radicalized climate increasingly destabilizes nature and civilization.
Equally impressive in the film are the interludes in which data pointing to our profound impact on the planet is presented in a manner more effective than any I've ever seen before. The graph at the left, from Skeptical Science and also on the ChasingIce website, is eye-opening even in this prosaic form, but is presented in the film in a dynamic three-dimension format that should be seen by every person on the planet. I wish the filmmakers would release those educational snippets as short videos for widespread public consumption.
Glaciologist Olga Sergienko fielded questions afterwards, and will be back tonight.
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