It was while documenting renown nature photographer James Balog that film crew members Adam LeWinter and Jeff Orlowski caught a chance happening of epic proportions... all on tape. Patiently awaiting anything to happen while filming throughout the long days of Western Greenland's frozen surface, Orlwoski and LeWinter caught the monumental event of 3,000-ft. tall Illulissat Glacier "calving" for more than an hour, resulting in a mile-long retreat of ice.
As captured, the event - as sure a sign of gross climate change/Global Warming as any ever dedicated to a material archive, in the minds of Balog and team members - is part of Orlowski's Academy Award-nominated documentary Chasing Ice. Released in 2012 and up for Best Song (by actress Scarlett Johansson) at this year's upcoming Oscars, Orlowski's documentary chronicles Balog's nearly decade-long journey trekking across multiple ice-covered lands throughout the globe with the specific intent of catching such awe-inspiring - yet possibly apocalyptic - real-time details of the current reputed climate crisis.
The video (watch below) - which has already been viewed more than 700,000 times on YouTube - purports to show the "largest glacier calving" ever committed to film (or, in this case, video).
Calving is the scientific name for the event - as seen clearly in the video - that transpires when a large piece of ice (or "iceberg") breaks off from a glacier. Calving is such a regular occurrence that cruise lines passing through Alaska will utilize it as a tourist attraction (as well as an entire sport, "glacier surfing," being created around the event as recently as 1995).
Attractions and sports aside, watching a mile of ice in Greenland completely disappear in less than two hours can only be seen as cataclysmic by the scientific community. However, there are various reasons that glaciers calve, and not all of them have to do with simple melting of ice caused by possible climate change.
"The mass balance of Greenland is still positive, which is a good sign," says Dr. Philip Giles from Saint Mary's University's Department of Geography, as regards 2010's Petermann Glacier calving (resulting in an iceberg the size of Manhattan Island; the largest such observed event in more than fifty years).
Dr. Giles is not alone in his estimation that events such as the Petermann Glacier calving or that seen in the Orlowski/LeWinter video may not be as definitive evidence of Global Warming as one might expect.
Controversial environmental writer, skeptic, and economist Bjorn Lomborg - subject of a documentary of his own (2010's Cool It) - has made a career out of not necessarily denying Global Warming but stating that such concerns are simply not as important as other global crises such as finding more affordable and effective energy alternatives.
"This does not mean that climate change isn't an issue," writes Lomborg in a Wall Street journal piece last month. "It means that exaggerating the threat concentrates resources in the wrong areas."
Balog couldn't disagree more, as evidenced not only in Chasing Ice (still in theaters now), but by his continued global trekking and lecture circuit connecting the disturbing increase of glacier calving/recession to Global Warming.
"What we're seeing is a pattern of extreme events, which are in many cases violent events," Balog told the San Francisco Chronicle last November.
"These are the kinds of things that the original scientists who were looking at the question of alteration of the atmosphere from carbon predicted over a century ago. They're now really starting to manifest itself on a regular basis.
"The core problem is the alteration of the climate, and we're seeing that climate change happening through the three dimensions of these glaciers."
Balog does optimistically note, however, that with some radical change in humans' relationship with the planet, "the destruction of the atmosphere is absolutely reversible."
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