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Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers

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A never-before-seen look into the forbidding environment of glaciers, this book celebrates a realm of magnificent endangered beauty. Since 2005, renowned nature photographer James Balog has devoted himself to capturing glaciers and documenting their daily changes. These stunning images are a celebration of some of the most extraordinary natural formations on earth, as well as a dramatic and timely demonstration of the stark consequences resulting from global warming—from Alaska to Iceland to the Alps. As glaciologists for the Extreme Ice Survey, Balog and his team are conducting the most extensive glacier study ever, covering France, Switzerland, Iceland, Greenland, the United States (Alaska and Montana), Nepal, Bolivia, and Antarctica. Their high-resolution cameras capture approximately 4,000 images per year. From this collection of nearly half a million photos, Balog presents the most stunning panoramic photography of glaciers ever published.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 4, 2012

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About the author

Terry Tempest Williams

101 books1,447 followers
Terry Tempest Williams is an American author, conservationist and activist. Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah in which she was raised. Her work ranges from issues of ecology and wilderness preservation, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature.

She has testified before Congress on women’s health, committed acts of civil disobedience in the years 1987 - 1992 in protest against nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert, and again, in March, 2003 in Washington, D.C., with Code Pink, against the Iraq War. She has been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of the Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "a barefoot artist" in Rwanda.

Williams is the author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World was published in 2008 by Pantheon Books.

In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. She also received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Award given by The Center for the American West. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfictionand a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in creative nonfiction. Williams was featured in Ken Burns' PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). In 2011, she received the 18th International Peace Award given by the Community of Christ Church.

Williams is currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah and a columnist for the magazine The Progressive. She has been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College where she continues to teach. She divides her time between Wilson, Wyoming and Castle Valley, Utah, where her husband Brooke is field coordinator for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Profile Image for Carol.
1,319 reviews
July 14, 2013
This book is huge! The photos of the glaciers are, indeed, portraits as the title indicates but they are vanishing as the title, also, indicates. Breaks my heart. I've seen only one glacier and hoped to see many more. Time is running out and this book may have to suffice. Thank goodness it is stunning.
Profile Image for Roseann.
451 reviews6 followers
December 31, 2012
This gorgeous coffee table book shows rather than tells the reader about the effects of Global Warming. A real eye-opener, everyone should at least take a look at what we are losing every day in the world.
Profile Image for William Ash.
Author 2 books3 followers
February 8, 2014
This is a wonderful book that covers a topic that is vital today. The photographs are beautiful and all the more poignant in that this is a world that is disappearing. I also encourage folks to see the documentary video Chasing Ice about the making of this project.
Profile Image for Brian.
3 reviews6 followers
January 9, 2013
Stunningly beautiful photography contrasts with the horrible demise of the world's glaciers. I can't wait to see James Balog's companion documentary film, Chasing Ice.
Profile Image for Laurie.
89 reviews
December 25, 2013
Beautiful book. It shows drastically how the environment around us is really changing in places we cannot normally visit.
Profile Image for Potassium.
804 reviews19 followers
February 11, 2018
Such beautiful and heartbreaking photos. Now I am even more determined to visit a glacier before they are all gone. :(
Profile Image for Alyssa Peiffer  Lee.
79 reviews3 followers
February 18, 2018
Absolutely stunning photography by James Balog and a beautifully written epilogue by Terry Tempest Williams!
76 reviews
March 7, 2021
Some amazing, captivating and bleekly sad photos.
Profile Image for Sheila.
215 reviews7 followers
May 7, 2013
Absolutely gorgeous photos of glaciers and ice. A little shocking and depressing how fast some of these glaciers are disappearing.
291 reviews3 followers
January 3, 2016
It would be even more alarming to watch the video version!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews

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