Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

The Greenland ice sheet is being watched closely because of its high sensitivity to global warming and the consequent climate change.  The massive sheet contains billions and billions of gallons of fresh water and the melting will cause this water to flow directly into the salty ocean waters, threatening to push south, slow down, or even halt the gulf stream conveyor belt.

That conveyor belt moves across the oceans of the world and is a major factor of climate creation.  Changes in that flow will cause changes in the weather.  Big changes in the flow will cause very big changes in the weather.

NASA, in conjunction with other international science research groups, has released results of a new study showing a very disturbing rate of decrease in the Greenland ice sheet.

For the first time NASA scientists have analyzed data from direct, detailed satellite measurements to show that ice losses now far surpass ice gains in the shrinking Greenland ice sheet.

Said lead author Scott Luthcke of NASA Goddard’s Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory. “In the 1990’s the ice was very close to balance with gains at about the same level as losses. That situation has now changed significantly, with an annual net loss of ice equal to nearly six years of average water flow from the Colorado River.”

Reuters had a story on this report a few days ago, but it doesn’t appear to have turned up in too many newspapers or on TV.  Yet this continues the unfolding of the biggest news story of our times — the melting of our planet and the threat this is to all existant species, including our own.

To add to this, I also include this story, because it is intimately related.  Besides warming our Earth, we continue to pollute it, trash it, kill it.  The United Nations has just reported that ‘dead zones’ in coastal waters around the world — areas where rivers and streams bring toxins from agriculture, chemical fertilizers, runoff that includes animal waste, and more and dump them into the oceans.  In these areas, for various periods of the year, there is no life at all.

The UNEP said in a statement that experts warn “these areas are fast becoming major threats to fish stocks and thus to the people who depend upon fisheries for food and livelihoods.”

These stories are reminders of the uncomfortable truth that we cannot live like this any more.