2:55 PM Wed, Aug 01, 2007 | Permalink
By Kate Bramson  Email this author | Email this entry |
Photo courtesy of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's office
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse standing on the edge of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier, part of Greenland’s Ilulissat ice fjord.
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse joined nine other senators on a two-day trip to Greenland to examine the effects of increasing global temperatures and to learn more about how the changing climate impacts the ice sheets and glaciers of the world’s largest island.
U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., ranking member of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, co-led the weekend trip to Kangerlussuaq and Ilulissat on Greenland’s west coast.
In a statement issued today, Whitehouse said: “Greenland is our planet’s distant early warning system for the effects of climate change. To see firsthand the changes at the ice cap and to hear firsthand of hunters who can no longer take dog sleds out on the ice because it isn’t there, is a powerful reminder that this system is sending us a warning.
Participants visited the Kangia Ice Fjord near Illulissat on Saturday and toured iceberg-filled Disko Bay by boat on Sunday. The Kangia glacier, already one of the world’s fastest moving two decades ago, has doubled its speed since then, an acceleration scientists say is driven by rising global temperatures, according to the senator’s office.
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Negative, negative. Look at the bright side. The world is rapidly running out of clean fresh water. What better source than a melting glacier. Problem solved.
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