Unless we change our climate policy very soon, the only glacier in Montana’s Glacier National Park will be in the park’s name. [The photos to the right show Grinnell Glacier shrinking sharply between 1900 (top) and 1998 (bottom).]
So Treehugger.com proposes a great contest idea that would be funny if it weren’t so sad: Help Re-Name Glacier National Park.
They note that Al Gore has already suggested: “The Park Formerly Known as Glacier.” You can enter as often as you like.
I have a few entries of my own:
- “It’s not ice to fool with Mother Nature,” National Park
- “Glaciers? We don’t need no stinkin’ glaciers!” National Park
- Glacier-free National Park
- Greenhouse National Park
- “Now you can hike everywhere” National Park
- “Have an ice-free day” National Park
- “Hey, if you like ice so much, bring a cooler” National Park
- George W. Bush National Park
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The idea is amusing and catches the attention, but Glacier National Park will always be appropriately named as such because the landforms were so dramatically sculpted by glaciers. We ought to be careful about making glacial retreat a poster-child for climnate change impacts as glaciers have been retreating for millenia and we run the risk of highlighting a dismissible impact of warming. There are other impacts we ought to be directing attention toward.
The recent accelerated loss of glaciers in this country and around the world is both a previously predicted impact of global warming and a current observational demonstration of the reality of global warming.
Also, much of North America was sculpted by glaciers — but we don’t call Canada “Glacier Country” or call the Finger Lakes the “Glacier Lakes”.
I certainly agree with both of joe’s points, but they do not really address the purpose of my comment: we are in an immensely important PR game here, needing to convince more people of thre reality of climate change, and the glacial retreat card is overplayed because many will dismiss it due to the reality of glacial recession prior to the industrial revolution (regardless of rate acceleration). Sure, Canada was under a sheet of ice many times. But the “Crown of the Continent” merits recognition for its beauty (sorry, the finger lakes are pretty, but Glacier Park they ain’t) due to what glaciers have done to the landscape, not to their presence.
That last suggestion for a name is perfect! George W. Bush National Park. Let it forever be known who is responsible for the loss of this national treasure. Oh the irony…
(Obviously this is all meant in a humorous light)
I think that “Bear Bait Buttes” has a ring to it.