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Marking Time With a Glacier
Now that Lenore and I are empty-nesters, the glacier face has, at least for the moment, come to rest on a recently exposed bedrock perch located up a side valley on the far side of Portage Lake. It has retreated more than a mile since we first made Alaska our home.
For the time being, the downhill flow of the glacier appears to have reached equilibrium with the amount of ice that continually calves off the glacier's face; the glacier's front edge, therefore, remains at the same place. The massive icebergs that had been spawned while the glacier retreated through the deep waters of Portage Lake have been replaced by much smaller ice shards that, unfortunately, make much less entertaining playground structures.
Today, when our grown children make their way back home, nostalgic ski trips to the remnants of Portage Glacier have taken on a new significance. Adam and Elyse, having experienced "outside" (that's what Alaskans call the rest of the world), can now accompany their dad across Portage Lake with an enlightened appreciation for their birthplace, and for the uniqueness of growing up as Portage Glacier was growing smaller.
Yeager lives in Girdwood, Alaska.
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: Don B @ 05/08/2008 9:01:19 AM
Comment: Wonderfully well written and interesting article about Tom Yeager's personal obsservations of an Alaskan glacier.
If he were 1,000 years old he could have reported that the glacier was once much smaller than it is now but grew dramatically during the Little Ice Age before beginning its current shrinking phase about 150 years ago. He then could have concluded that all of those changes were due to natural forces.
Posted By: whaleback1 @ 05/05/2008 4:21:31 PM
Comment: Good article. Good subtitle. The fact that population growth is the main cause of greenhouse effect is as obvious as an elephant in the living room. Sadly, few seem to have noticed it.
In 1980s, zero population growth was a big movement. But it suddenly stopped. Why? In my view, it is because political correctness. Remember the liberals' favorite slogan "Reproductive Right"? They believe a woman can have as many children as she wants, whether she can afford them or not. If you dare to suggest lowering birth rate, the think you are against different cultures, poor people, and immigrants. Let's face it. The left wing politicians secretly like to see poverty rate go up, as poor people have more dependency on the government, thus will vote for them. And what can increase poverty rate faster than big family size and importing poor immigrants?
Of course conservatives are equally as bad. They are mostly business and stock owners. To them, big population means more consumers and more profit. And there are those who want lots of young people to pay for their social security pension and Medicare.
To curb green house effect, we all need to do our own part. And that is not merely criticize Bush for not signing the Keyto protocol. The most important thing is to reduce the birth rate in the US. Today, US birth rate is twice as high as that in any other industrialized nation. And this is not only because of the immigrants. Looking around, I do not see many white people with fewer than three kids today. Actually, my friends and I all have observed many doctors have more than five children. And Al Gore, the biggest crusader of greenhouse effect has five children. I am sorry to say that Americans are extremely ignorant about over-population in the US. Could it be there is a secret race to reproduce because population means political power?
I once read a columnist with eight children who teach people to economize by washing and reusing dental floss. My friend's father insists the whole family (of seven) to share bath water to save on water bill. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler if they had fewer kids?
Posted By: whaleback1 @ 05/05/2008 4:19:56 PM
Comment: Good article. Good subtitle. The fact that population growth is the main cause of greenhouse effect is as obvious as an elephant in the living room. Sadly, few seem to have noticed it.
In 1980s, zero population growth was a big movement. But it suddenly stopped. Why? In my view, it is because political correctness. Remember the liberals' favorite slogan "Reproductive Right"? They believe a woman can have as many children as she wants, whether she can afford them or not. If you dare to suggest lowering birth rate, the think you are against different cultures, poor people, and immigrants. Let's face it. The left wing politicians secretly like to see poverty rate go up, as poor people have more dependency on the government, thus will vote for them. And what can increase poverty rate faster than big family size and importing poor immigrants?
Of course conservatives are equally as bad. They are mostly business and stock owners. To them, big population means more consumers and more profit. And there are those who want lots of young people to pay for their social security pension and Medicare.
To curb green house effect, we all need to do our own part. And that is not merely criticize Bush for not signing the Keyto protocol. The most important thing is to reduce the birth rate in the US. Today, US birth rate is twice as high as that in any other industrialized nation. And this is not only because of the immigrants. Looking around, I do not see many white people with fewer than three kids today. Actually, my friends and I all have observed many doctors have more than five children. And Al Gore, the biggest crusader of greenhouse effect has five children. I am sorry to say that Americans are extremely ignorant about over-population in the US. Could it be there is a secret race to reproduce because population means political power?
I once read a columnist with eight children who teach people to economize by washing and reusing dental floss. My friend's father insists the whole family (of seven) to share bath water to save on water bill. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler if they had fewer kids?