surrounded by climate catastrophe 4/21/2017 0 Comments   Meltwater gushes from an ice cap on the island of Nordaustlandet, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE by E.L. Christianson Jr. Perhaps there is still time to 'ease' ourselves down the drain as opposed to being violently flushed away.  In either case, we should, at the very least, recognize our plight and attempt to respond responsibly.  It matters for our children and grand-children. When President Taft created Glacier National Park in 1910, it was home to an estimated 150 glaciers. Since then the number has decreased to fewer than 30, and most of those remaining have shrunk in area by two-thirds. Fagre predicts that within 30 years most if not all of the park's namesake glaciers will disappear. ​Everywhere on Earth ice is changing. The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035. ​Arctic sea ice has thinned significantly over the past half century, and its extent has declined by about 10 percent in the past 30 years. NASA's repeated laser altimeter readings show the edges of Greenland's ice sheet shrinking. Spring freshwater ice breakup in the Northern Hemisphere now occurs nine days earlier than it did 150 years ago, and autumn freeze-up ten days later. Thawing permafrost has caused the ground to subside more than 15 feet (4.6 meters) in parts of Alaska. From the Arctic to Peru, from Switzerland to the equatorial glaciers of Man Jaya in Indonesia, massive ice fields, monstrous glaciers, and sea ice are disappearing, fast. ​Rising sea level produces a cascade of effects. Bruce Douglas, a coastal researcher at Florida International University, calculates that every inch (2.5 centimeters) of sea-level rise could result in eight feet (2.4 meters) of horizontal retreat of sandy beach shorelines due to erosion. Furthermore, when salt water intrudes into freshwater aquifers, it threatens sources of drinking water and makes raising crops problematic. ​Oceans, in effect, mimic some functions of the human circulatory system. Just as arteries carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the extremities, and veins return blood to be replenished with oxygen, oceans provide life-sustaining circulation to the planet. Propelled mainly by prevailing winds and differences in water density, which changes with the temperature and salinity of the seawater, ocean currents are critical in cooling, warming, and watering the planet's terrestrial surfaces—and in transferring heat from the Equator to the Poles To put everything into perspective,​ more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years. Please watch the video featured below: We human beings are here at this specific point in time, having caused tremendous changes in Earth's climate which will have tremendous repercussions involving human existence on the planet, and we act stupidly, pretending to be innocent.  It is as if we are incapable of understanding anything other than making money today.  It is as if we are incapable of understanding anything about tomorrow.  When the sun comes up 'tomorrow', we will finally realize that the money we made yesterday has no value and there will be no 'tomorrows' for our grand-children.  If we wait that long, it will be too late, if not already, and that's the truth !!! a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away. The longest — and probably largest — proof of our current climate catastrophe ever caught on camera. ​Photographer James Balog and his crew were hanging out near a glacier when their camera captured something extraordinary. They were in Greenland, gathering footage from the time-lapse they'd positioned all around the Arctic Circle for the last several years. They were also there to shoot scenes for a documentary. And while they were hoping to capture some cool moments on camera, no one expected a huge chunk of a glacier to snap clean off and slide into the ocean right in front of their eyes. It was the largest such event ever filmed. For nearly an hour and 15 minutes, Balog and his crew stood by and watched as a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away. As far as anyone knows, this was an unprecedented geological catastrophe and they caught the entire thing on tape. It won't be the last time something like this happens either. But once upon a time, Balog was openly skeptical about that "global warming" thing. Balog had a reputation since the early 1980s as a conservationist and environmental photographer. And for nearly 20 years, he'd scoffed at the climate change heralds shouting, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" "I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet. It didn't seem probable, it didn't seem possible," he explained in the 2012 documentary film "Chasing Ice." There was too much margin of error in the computer simulations, too many other pressing problems to address about our beautiful planet. As far as he was concerned, these melodramatic doomsayers were distracting from the real issues. That was then. In fact, it wasn't until 2005 that Balog became a believer. He was sent on a photo expedition of the Arctic by National Geographic, and that first northern trip was more than enough to see the damage for himself. "It was about actual tangible physical evidence that was preserved in the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica," he said in a 2012 interview with ThinkProgress. "That was really the smoking gun showing how far outside normal, natural variation the world has become. And that's when I started to really get the message that this was something consequential and serious and needed to be dealt with." Some of that evidence may have been the fact that more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years. Here's the entire video of the crumbling glacier. And if you were moved even a fraction as much as those glaciers moved, you can sign this petition to demand that we protect the Arctic Circle now before it gets worse. Ice Age glaciers played an essential role in shaping Yosemite’s landscape. Most of this ice had melted away due to natural warming by about 10,000 years ago. During a more recent cold period called the Little Ice Age, small glaciers formed below the highest peaks. . Repeat photography of the Lyell Glacier shows 130 years of ice loss. USGS photo by Israel C. Russell (top) NPS photo (bottom)