Slip Sliding Away

Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan
The information's unavailable to the mortal man
We're workin' our jobs, collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway,
when in fact we're slip sliding away

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination,
the more you slip sliding away

Paul Simon

I could not stop thinking of this song as I read this:

Melting Greenland glacier may hasten rise in sea level
The Independent
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 25 July 2005

"Scientists monitoring a glacier in Greenland have found it is moving into the sea three times faster than a decade ago.

Satellite measurements of the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier show that, as well as moving more rapidly, the glacier's boundary is shrinking dramatically - probably because of melting brought about by climate change.

The Kangerdlugssuaq glacier on Greenland's east coast is one of several that drains the huge Greenland ice sheet. The glacier's movements are considered critical in understanding the rate at which the ice sheet is melting.

Kangerdlugssuaq is about 1,000 metres (3,280ft) thick, about 4.5 miles wide, extends for more than 20 miles into the ice sheet and drains about 4 per cent of the ice from the Greenland ice sheet.

Experts believe any change in the rate at which the glacier transports ice from the ice sheet into the ocean has important implications for increases in sea levels around the world.

If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt into the ocean it would raise sea levels by up to seven metres (23ft), inundating vast areas of low-lying land, including London and much of eastern England.

Computer models suggest that this would take at least 1,000 years but even a sea-level rise of a metre would have a catastrophic impact on coastal plains where more than two-thirds of the world's population live.

Measurements taken in 1988 and in 1996 show the glacier was moving at a rate of between 3.1 and 3.7 miles per year. The latest measurements taken this summer show it is now moving at 8.7 miles a year.

Gordon Hamilton, professor of earth sciences at Maine University, who made the measurements using global positioning system (GPS) satellites, said the velocity measurements were accurate to within about 45 metres of movement per year and that Kangerdlugssuaq is probably the fastest-moving glacier in the world.

"This is a dramatic discovery. There is concern that the acceleration of this and similar glaciers and the associated discharge of ice is not described in current ice-sheet models of the effects of climate change," Professor Hamilton said.

Professor Hamilton said: "As the warming trend migrates north, glaciers at higher latitudes in Greenland might also respond in the same way as Kangerdlugssuaq glacier.

"In turn, that could have serious implications for the rate of sea-level rise."

And so it is not just Antarctica,

not just the Arctic Ocean,

but Greenland as well,

where the signs of significant climate change continue.

And our political leadership not only turns a blind eye,

it becomes the source of an evil eye.

But are they truly blind, or truly evil?

Or do they have a plan?

Perhaps we need to understand that there is a plan.

And the plan to deal with Climate Change is not to arrest it.

The wheels are already in motion so to speak.

And the Plan must then turn into adaptation.

How do we save and strengthen our food supply?

How do we protect our southern cities from dangerous heat storms?

How do we provide our cities with water from dried rivers

and aquifers?

And, in the face of Peak Oil?

How do we prepare our communities for the loss of their

most precious asset?

A stable climate.

And how do you prepare?


Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan
The information's unavailable to the mortal man
We're workin' our jobs, collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway,
when in fact we're slip sliding away

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination,
the more you slip sliding away

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