A Friend Of Mine Just Got Back From Glacier Park... (Pix Alert)

[WillyT]

He said that the park was still absolutely beautiful, but that folks around there are saying that the glaciers will basically be gone by 2010. I find that difficult to believe, but then the last time I saw the park was 1976.

Anybody know what the actual status\predictions are? Are the locals correct?

The way I remember it...







What The Sierra Club is saying now...



<snip>

The glaciers of Glacier National Park, like glaciers all over the world, are shrinking. Slowly, inch by inch, warming temperatures are melting them away. On any given day, or any given year, the changes are not dramatic. But over decades, the impact rising temperatures have had upon the park is truly awesome. If nothing is done to curb global warming, by the year 2030 Park scientists predict there may not be a single glacier left in Glacier National Park.

Some of the Park's best known glaciers have already shrunk by more than half. The number of glaciers in the park has dropped from an estimated 150 in 1850 to approximately 35 today. Since 1968, as the warming trend has worsened, and the human influence on it been more sharply defined, many of the smaller glaciers have disappeared entirely.

Boulder Glacier, shown in the animation, has already been a victim of global warming. Warming temperatures over the last 60 years led to it's drastic decline. On September 2, 1997 Vice President Al Gore visited Glacier National Park and witnessed firsthand the damage warming temperatures have done to glaciers like Boulder. Park scientist Dan Fagre pointed out the steady retreat of the glacier, and the damage warming temperatures have done throughout the park.

The retreat of the glaciers within Glacier National Park will mean more than just less ice. It may have a devastating impact on natural ecosystems that have taken thousands of years to develop. The natural treasures the park was created to protect may disappear along with the ice.

<snip>

Link: http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/articles/glacier.asp

Guess I answered my own question...

[Maru Kitteh]

1. We plan to go next spring. Want to see them before they're gone.

[Gregorian]

5. That's the perfect example.

Do you not see the irony in that? It's always "just me". Or maybe you don't see it. I'm having trouble posting this and not being offensive. But I feel that finally, after viewing posts like this, that I must say something.

[Maru Kitteh]

9. A bit of coherence if you would please?

I cannot answer your criticism unless it is clearly presented.

At any rate, don't be offended when I don't reply until tomorrow. I'm off to bed now.

[Gregorian]

12. Take what Al Gore has said and then personalize it.

That is exactly what everyone is missing. I'm not just some guy ranting. This is a subject I've been paying attention to long before Gore came along. It's so obvious, yet I suppose I'd have to write a book to open people's eyes.

The bottom line is number of people combined with what they are doing. The problem is twofold. And people don't seem to be connecting the two. What Gore is saying is great. But unless people connect it with population, they'll never make that connection. Which is, thinking in terms of we versus me. And there is a reason people aren't making that connection. It has made my life really difficult. And it should. It's the only way we are going to curb the increasing carbon footprint that is going to destroy this planet. Or at least alter it in a way that will change it dramatically. That connection leads to the realization that each one of us is doing this. Not just some obscure notion that it's happening. Each one of us has the responsibility to change what we are doing. To sacrifice. That is the word that is so threatening.

The thing that is so obvious is the use of petroleum. Oh it's just one seat on a plane. It's just me, one time. It's something everyone has to do. Bush is an idiot, he doesn't even like to travel. Travel broadens the mind. All kinds of reasons why we should. And very little inspection as to what we need to do in order to stop the problem now. Because if not now, then when. The real problem is more related to the fact that there are six billion of us than it is to petroleum use. There is a point below which the planet can handle this kind of carbon dioxide production. But our numbers have exceeded that. And more. Now the forests are disappearing faster than they can grow. Number of users. There is no argument.

When you use petroleum, you have to realize that "you" is now billions of "you"s.

It's actually one of those things that can be put in binary terms. You either are causing global warming or you aren't. And that is what each of us is faced with.

[uppityperson]

10. OMG! It's HORRIBLE that they are disappearing, global climate change is AWFUL!!

I am going to go see them before they are gone.

Better? Sometimes people reply by saying something personal rather than commiserating with how awful it is, what we should or can do, or rants about politicians. Sometimes people give a personal response.

I have seen Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau receeding and it is heartbreaking.

[n2doc]

13. Good for you

I don't see why people complain about this. Nothing you personally can do will affect the melting of the Glaciers. You are free to support CO2 reduction and other policies but realistically, we are already beyond the point where these systems can be saved as they exist today. Go or don't go the outcome is the same. So do go, take lots of pictures, and educate everyone who wants to listen about what we are losing. That may have a bigger long term effect than anything else you can do.

Frankly if I had the resources I would try to see them too.

[Marrah_G]

2. Hmmm I wonder if we can go find my brothers camera now?

He lost it in a crack in the glacier back in like 1976......

[WillyT]

3. Might Be A Little Smashed...

The camera, not your brother, or me, LOL.

:shrug:

[Marrah_G]

4. probably my brother too

:rofl:

[montanacowboy]

6. Thats pretty much true

I think our Gov. Schweitzer said that last year after flying over the glaciers. I can see the peaks everyday and still marvel at that beauty up in the park. I live about 20 miles from the park.

[stevedeshazer]

7. This is absolutely true

The decline of glaciers in the Pacific Northwest is indisputable.

I've lived here and hiked extensively in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia for my whole life (I'm in my fifties) and climate change is for real.

The gif you posted regarding Boulder Glacier represents something that is happening all over western North America.

When the oil wars are over, get ready for the water wars.

[Maestro]

8. They are definitely disappearing.

The National Park Service will soon have to rename the park to Glacier Canyon Park or something along those lines. :eyes:

[WillyT]

11. Glacier Canyon Park...

That just made me shudder.

:wow:

Crap...

[lonestarnot]

14. Will they still be there a couple of weeks. I think I'll take my beach rug and go there instead of

the sand.

[question everything]

15. Oh, what a wonderful cool air

among all the hot topics the rest of the forum.

Thank you, thank you so much.

[lazyriver]

16. I backpacked through Glacier in August 2000 for my "bachelor

party". Two friends and I plotted the most remote trip we could find, 65 miles through the back country winding our way from the western border of the park at Lake MacDonald to the Loop Road over seven days, then hitchhiking back to where we dropped the car. Most of western Montana was on fire at the time and we saw only two people, a husband and wife who decided to turn around and head out, on the second day. We were the last group allowed into the back country before the park service canceled the remaining permits due to fire and fire risk. It was the best week of my life. GNP is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen even though most of the "glaciers" were little more than melting ice sheets even by 2000. The ranger who gave us our back country orientation before we went in said the park is named not so much for the glaciers that exist but really for the features left behind by the real glaciers during and after the ice ages. Still, we saw the ice in the cirques and even had to cross a snow field at about 7500 feet. It was other-worldly walking through snow in August and waking up to frozen water bottles and grizzly tracks just outside our tent at Hole in the Wall.

I gotta get back there.

Thanks for posting this.