The debate about climate change is over, the facts are in, the effects are evident and more people are on board to take on the challenge. The movement is strong and growing with every new weather-related disaster, but we need to get everyone on board.

The new documentary Chasing Ice (which opens today in New York City and later this month in several other cities-see schedule for more info), details the great lengths at which one man, James Balog, went in the pursuit of providing conclusive visual evidence of what opened his eyes to the very real threat of climate change. A seasoned photographer, Balog has spent his life looking through the lens. He knows the value of tangible images in telling a story and he set out to use his expertise to give the world a photographic record of climate change.

Through his foundation of the Extreme Ice Survey, Balog setup more than 25 multi-year time-lapse cameras across the world to capture the loss of glacial ice cover.

The results are breathtaking, but the realities are frightening. In a matter of seconds you can see our vanishing glaciers over the past several years and the rate at which the ice is melting is made undeniably clear. As you sit back and watch massive sections of glaciers break off (or calve), and hear the tremendous noise of such a monumental occurrence, the severity of our changing climate is brought to life. The animation of these images and videos reflect a world that is changing drastically and is increasingly becoming a foreign planet.

A chunk of ice the size of the entire lower tip of Manhattan and 2 ½ to 3 times as tall breaking off into the ocean can bring to mind a frightful image, but to actually see it in real-life and time hits home unlike any analogy or statistic. Glaciers offer a unique perspective on the immediacy and scale of climate change because of our ability, as demonstrated through Balog’s work, to visibly see these massive formations dwindle into nothing. This is why Balog chose to tell the story through images and ice.

Chasing Ice leaves a truly haunting impression on viewers, but not a futile one. As Balog says, there is still time to act, but there is no more time to argue. If we want to leave a positive legacy and provide a livable future for our species and all of the Earth’s wildlife, we need to act now.

Chasing Ice premieres November 9th at Cinema Village in New York City. It will have limited release across the country and will be in Washington, D.C. at the Landmark E. Street theater beginning on November 16th. Check out the website for showings near you.

Opening in select theaters this weekend is the documentary Chasing Ice, which chronicles photographer Balog’s worldwide journey to accumulate visual evidence of the effects of climate change. We can’t necessarily see carbon pollution, but we can see what it does. And we can see it most clearly in the chilliest places on the planet–Iceland, Greenland, Alaska.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Balog and his team of scientists and engineers travel from glacier to glacier setting up cameras, bolting them to mountainsides or nestling them between boulders and out of the hurricane-force winds. The cameras are part of a high-tech, specially-constructed package made to (mostly) withstand harsh conditions, while still capturing an image every sixty minutes during daylight hours. The team checks back on the cameras periodically, downloading the files and fixing technical difficulties. Then they compile all the images, a virtual flipbook of sorts, showing the changes in glaciers over time; in this case, several years.

Since I am a mind-reader, I know you are thinking, glaciers are huge! Does a glacier’s size really change that much in such a short amount of time? 

You know the term “moving at a glacial pace,” used to infer that something is happening so slowly that it’s only noticeable on a geologic time scale? Based on Balog’s time-lapse images, it’s probably time we clarify that term…”moving at a glacial* pace” (*pre-industrialized-era glacier, that is). So yes, a glacier’s size really does change that much in such a short amount of time. Yes, because moving at a glacial pace is not quite as slow as it used to be.

The compiled images are really something else, something that we literally have never seen before, and the footage of Balog and Team tramping around ice fields and rappelling into crevasses is enough to make any cautious person’s stomach drop. But on a level far greater than promoting the aesthetic beauty of far-off places, Balog manages to bring the average person to far corners of the world, and closer to the ice-melting realities of our carbon-polluting society.

After you see this stunning documentary, visit the Chasing Ice website to spread the message and encourage high-profile members of our society to give it a watch.

• Find a screening of Chasing Ice near you
• Listen to the Fresh Air interview with James Balog, during which he asks, “If a glacier vanishes in the arctic and no camera is there to witness it, would anyone ever know if it was ever there?“ 
• Watch James Balog’s TED Talk

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