From Alaska to the Rocky Mountains, America’s glaciers are changing before our eyes. Protecting them requires more than documenting what we’re losing, it requires connecting science, conservation, communities, and the public.
There are places on Earth where environmental change can feel abstract.
A glacier is not one of them.
Stand in front of one, compare what you see with a photograph taken decades earlier, and the transformation can become remarkably tangible. A landscape that appears permanent suddenly reveals itself to be anything but.
I experienced some of that perspective while traveling through Patagonia, where seeing glaciers in person completely changed the scale at which I understood them. Photographs are impressive. Statistics are important. But standing before an enormous mass of ice carved through a mountain landscape over centuries creates a different relationship with the environment.
It is also why glaciers can be such powerful storytellers for a changing planet.
Polar researcher and journalist Grace Cordsen, whom we recently interviewed for The Intelligence Report Podcast, has witnessed that transformation repeatedly during her work in the polar regions.
“I’ve seen the same glacier recede year after year.”
Cordsen has also examined historical imagery showing what these landscapes looked like decades earlier. As she explained during our conversation, glaciers provide one of the clearest ways of seeing environmental change through time because the differences can be visually unmistakable.
For the United States, that story is happening in our own backyard.
America Is a Glacier Nation
When Americans picture glaciers, it is easy to imagine Antarctica, Greenland, Patagonia or some distant polar expedition.
But the United States is itself a glacier country.
Glaciers remain across Alaska and portions of the western United States, making the cryosphere part of America’s natural heritage. These landscapes are connected to broader mountain ecosystems, freshwater systems, wildlife habitat and communities downstream.
That means the disappearance of glaciers isn’t simply about losing beautiful scenery.
It represents changes within interconnected ecosystems.
This is an important distinction because conservation is sometimes communicated as though protecting an individual species, river, forest or glacier is an isolated objective.
Nature doesn’t work that way.
Mountain ecosystems function as systems. Ice, snow, rivers, vegetation, wildlife and human communities interact across landscapes. What happens high in the mountains can eventually influence environments far beyond them.
Protecting glaciers therefore requires thinking beyond the ice itself.
What We See Changes What We Protect
There is another challenge surrounding glacier conservation: most people will never stand on one.
During my conversation with Cordsen, something she said particularly resonated with me. Her research examines the visual record of the Arctic—how scientists, explorers, artists and others have documented these environments and how those records allow us to understand environmental change.
That matters because environmental communication can bridge the enormous distance between remote ecosystems and everyday life.
Scientific research gives us the evidence.
Photography allows us to see the transformation.
Journalism translates complicated issues for larger audiences.
Exploration creates firsthand witnesses.
Local and Indigenous knowledge provides perspectives developed through generations of living alongside these landscapes.
And storytelling gives people a reason to care.
That combination is powerful.
Cordsen described how returning to the same areas and examining images from 30 or 40 years earlier can make a glacier appear like an entirely different place.
You don’t need to understand every component of cryospheric science to understand two photographs placed next to one another.
Sometimes seeing the difference is enough to start asking questions.
Conservation Has to Include the People Who Live There
Protecting mountain and polar environments also requires recognizing that these aren’t simply landscapes on a map.
They can be homes.
Cordsen emphasized an important distinction when discussing her experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Arctic, she explained, has a deep human and cultural history, making it essential for visitors and researchers to understand and respect the communities and cultures connected to these environments.
That principle extends far beyond the Arctic.
Successful conservation cannot simply arrive from somewhere else and tell communities how their landscapes should be managed.
It works best when science meets local knowledge and when the people living closest to an ecosystem participate in protecting it.
That philosophy is central to the work of Cumbres Blancas, the Colombian nonprofit behind Glacier Nation.
Founded in 2019, Cumbres Blancas works to protect and restore glaciers and páramos through community-led restoration, applied science and environmental education. Importantly, its approach combines ecological science with ancestral knowledge while empowering communities to become long-term stewards of their territories.
That model offers a lesson that extends well beyond Colombia.
From Awareness to Action
Information alone doesn’t protect an ecosystem.
People do.
Scientists collecting data matter. So do conservation organizations restoring ecosystems, policymakers creating effective protections, businesses developing solutions, journalists communicating what is happening, and communities caring for the places in which they live.
One of Cordsen’s comments toward the end of our conversation captured perhaps the simplest starting point:
“Go learn about them.”
She encouraged people to learn about the polar regions, understand how the climate is changing them, and then discover the many different ways they can support their protection.
It sounds simple.
But awareness is often where stewardship begins.
And awareness becomes significantly more powerful when it leads to participation.
That philosophy is also behind Glacier Nation, a movement born in Colombia that now connects scientists, communities and audiences internationally around glacier conservation and the freshwater systems these environments sustain. Its network has expanded to more than 30 countries as it works toward connecting the 40 countries that still have glaciers.
Its Global Challenge 2026 takes that concept a step further by bringing together leaders from glacier nations around the world and challenging them to take action within their own countries. Eighteen participants will ultimately travel to the Colombian Andes for an intensive 15-day experience with Glacier Nation and Cumbres Blancas.
I’m participating in that challenge representing the United States.
For me, however, the larger idea behind the challenge is more important than any individual expedition.
It asks a useful question:
What can each of us actually do from where we are?
The Future of Glaciers Won’t Be Decided on Glaciers Alone
Perhaps the most important lesson is that glacier conservation doesn’t belong exclusively to glaciologists.
Scientists are indispensable, but so are educators, policymakers, entrepreneurs, explorers, journalists, conservationists and local communities.
The challenges facing these environments cross disciplines, borders and institutions. Our response needs to do the same.
That is one reason initiatives such as Glacier Nation matter. The movement isn’t simply documenting disappearing ice. It is attempting to connect science with conservation action, communities and public awareness, and turn concern into participation.
There is still ice in the mountains.
There are still scientists studying it, communities protecting it and conservationists restoring the ecosystems surrounding it.
And there is still an opportunity to determine what happens next.
The question isn’t simply whether we care about glaciers.
It’s what we’re willing to do while they’re still here.
