We on Long Island are actually on a moraine. The ice stopped here. There are many drumlins.
On recent travels in Alaska, twice in the last two years I was able to see up close moraines with the ice behind them. Some were no longer being pushed forward. Seven of the eight major glaciers there are in retreat. The one that isn't retreating is moving because one of the seven is no longer in front of it. One of the Sawyer glaciers in Tracy's Arm is considered in catastrophic retreat. There is no dispute that something is going on with the climate. This is not a matter of politics. People used to dispute that smoking was bad for your health too. Where are they now?
Flying over the Mendenhall Glacier, I wrote this. Too bad I can't post the photo I took from the plane.
Outside the window
Lies a land so foreign,
No, so alien it is beyond
My comprehension to believe
Such a place could exist.
The ground below,
A river of white
Extends as far as the eye can see.
Interrupted only by the sharp points
Of mountaintops popping up
Like islets in a sea of white cotton.
The clouds on the horizon too
Are indistinguishable from the snow
Save for the gray overcast that separates
The cirrus from the cumulus.
This is the most extreme place on earth.
Nothing could live here,
Save an ice worm,
Yet it is a source of life.
The snow, ever moving downward
Eventually to rejoin the sea
The end of a journey
That began at the top of the world. (K. Hickson 2008)
