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  • Transcriber: TED Translators Admin Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs

  • Nature reveals itself to us in unique ways,

  • if we stop and look at the world through a window of time.

  • Over the last decade,

  • I've observed endangered species and habitats around the world,

  • using a photographic technique that captures the passage of time,

  • literally from day to night,

  • all within a single image.

  • It has allowed me to witness

  • the fleeting moments between wildlife and the natural habitat

  • as time changes over the course of a single day.

  • In the Serengeti, during a five-week drought,

  • I discovered a watering hole and watched, for 26 hours,

  • diverse and competitive wildlife

  • calmly share our planet's most precious resource:

  • water.

  • On Lake Bogoria in Kenya, I photographed the great migration of flamingos.

  • This happens normally during the peak of dry season,

  • but climate change has created evening thunderstorms,

  • turning normally dry hills green

  • and creating freshwater streams in which the flamingos joyously bathe.

  • Our planet is changing before our eyes.

  • But to witness that change

  • is also to witness the remarkable relationships between all of nature,

  • to see the infinite beauty of it,

  • to learn how much bigger than us it is

  • and why it is worth fighting for.

  • In 2019, the Greenland ice sheet was experiencing its largest melt

  • in recorded history:

  • 200 billion tons of ice liquified into the ocean.

  • When glacial ice melts,

  • caving icebergs release sediments and particles into the seawater,

  • initiating our ocean's food chain.

  • Plankton feed on the sediment,

  • krill eat plankton,

  • and the humpback whales feed on the krill.

  • This photograph is the result of witnessing with my camera

  • a 36-hour feast by humpback whales.

  • We assume that the greatest threat of glacial melt

  • will be sea level rise,

  • which will certainly have major impacts on coastlines

  • and populations around the world.

  • But within this image,

  • we discover that perhaps the greatest threat from glacial melt

  • might be our ocean's ability to feed itself.

  • Without ice,

  • the ocean food chain may break.

  • Creating this photograph opened my consciousness.

  • I hope through your willingness to look and see,

  • it may open yours.

Transcriber: TED Translators Admin Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs

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