James Balog > Quotes

“When my daughers, Simone and Emily look at me 25 or 30 years from now and say 'what were you doing, when global warming was happening? And when you guys knew what was coming down the road?' I want to be able to say, 'guys, I was doing everything I knew how to do.”
― James Balog

“Bark is a waterproof skin of dead cells that protects a tree's interior plumbing. The furrows in bark are essentially stretch marks that appear as the tree expands. On some trees, like the giant sequoia, bark can be 12 or more inches thick--good insulation from wildfire. Other species, like birch and aspen, have skins just 1/4 inch thick. In the famously exquisite bark of paper birch, cells are laminated on top of one another in layers, so the bark can stretch without furrowing. Microscopic air spaces riddle the outer layers, reflecting light in all directions and making the bark appear white. Should the inner, re4ddish brown bark be exposed, a black scar develops.”
― James Balog