by Don Hoyle

I was first introduced to glaciers about 55 years ago when, as a young family, we traveled to the Columbia Ice Field in British Columbia. I remember traveling on a glacier in a caterpillar-type vehicle and looking down into the disappearing crevices. The tour guide explained how amazingly deep those crevices were. When we went to the toe of the glacier, we were told that if an explorer had fallen into one of the crevices a hundred years ago, he might be coming out of the toe. He would be preserved as he was when he fell into the crevice.

The impressive memory I have of that experience was of how long it would take for him to come over the toe. At that time the ice water flow seemed to be more in tune with Mother Nature, balancing the melting flow of water with the snow fall.

At that first visit to glaciers 53 years ago, I was impressed by how slowly an ice field flows to its melting stage at the toe. A statistic from September 2018 issue of Sierra Club Magazine tells us, “The Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting nearly three times faster than it was in 2012. Since 1992 it has lost three trillion tons of ice.” The island nations of the world including the Aleutian Islands attest to that as they are losing land to the o …’pcean. Feeling the agony of the melting of the glaciers, people are being displaced to new homes.

The Paris Climate Accord was able to convince the island nations to stay in the agreement by stating they would work toward a goal of only 1.5 centigrade rise in temperature by 2050 rather than the previous goal of 2 degrees centigrade. The current Sierra Club Magazine also reports: “If emission of greenhouse gases continue at their current rate, human-caused warming of the planet will exceed 1.5 degrees centigrade over pre-industrial temperatures by the year 2040,” which is ten years earlier than hoped for. We must slow down the rate of global warming.

Questions, comments or for further information, please contact Don Hoyle at 860-423-6141 or DonHoyle@aol.com