Op-Ed

Ice Water on the Cape

What we do in the next two or three years will determine our future

There are varying estimates of the rate and extent of sea level rise, All of them should be of concern to coastal and low land dwellers on the Cape, and indeed everywhere on earth.


A piece of Antarctica as large as the entire state of Texas turned from ice to water in the past year. To the north, vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean were open water this summer, one million square miles, an area equal to 6 Californias. Dr. Marika Holland foresees open shipping lanes there, the long imagined Northwest Passage, sought since the 16th century, is now a summertime reality.

To the south, the miles deep ice of western Antarctica is melting. Just days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of "the frightening prospect" that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could melt at the same time, Dr. Eric Rignot of NASA reports that is exactly what is happening right now, turning an expanse the size of Texas from ice to water.

If we don't want all that extra water to take out our beaches, swell our rivers, flood our marshlands, and cover our lowest land areas we have to move quickly. As the chairman of IPCC has warned, "What we do in the next 2 or 3 years will determine our future."

Our area has a major weapon in the battle to save the planet is the wind farm. Recently endorsed by the MMS draft report, there is no longer any excuse for politicians to hold positions opposite to the majority of their constituents.

We all have to pitch in. Here are some ways: back every form of renewable energy, switch from gas-guzzlers to hybrids, choose high-efficiency appliances and light bulbs, join Clean Power Now, plant trees and shrubs, "bundle" your errands, install solar panels, replace windows with double-glazed ones. "Think globally, act locally."

Richard C. Bartlett
Cotuit, MA
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Read Mr. Bartlett's other Op Eds below:

• Very clever, these Chinese
• Windmills for Salt, Corn, and Lightbulbs
• Three stories to melt your heart -- and the ice cap
• Advice to an aging Liberal Lion
• 10 degrees of difference - in the ocean
• An incredible confluence of news stories
• SOS or SOP
• The sky is falling, the sky is falling, windmills in the briny !
• Invisible Structures
• Bill Delahunt; modern mugwump