Glacier Future Quotes

People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully. Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.

The retreat and disappearance of glaciers—there are only 160,000 left—means we're burning libraries and damaging the planet, possibly beyond repair. Bit by bit, glacier by glacier, rib by rib, we're living the Fall.

struck by the pain of the ice and the rage of the water below that was forced to make room for the huge piece of frozen time, the glacier, trapped in a solid state for centuries, melting into the ocean and becoming one with its future. She feels small and insignificant in the face of such a display of nature.

So ended the formative period in [his] life, the single year that set in motion all the clockwork of his future identity. Thinking back on it, I wonder if it isn't the same for all of us. Adulthood is a glacier encroaching quietly on youth. When it arrives, the stamp of childhood suddenly freezes, capturing us for good in the image of our last act, the pose we struck when the ice of age set in.

Oh, how can I say this: People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running day calendar. Wildness puts us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully. Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.

Present, past, future, no more for me, But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere. Planets, stars, stardust, earth, Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms, Creation’s molding furnace, Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods, Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come, Every blade of grass, myself, mankind, Each particle of universal dust, Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust, I swallowed, transmuted all Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being!

In the years since the disaster, I often think of my friend Arturo Nogueira, and the conversations we had in the mountains about God. Many of my fellow survivors say they felt the personal presence of God in the mountains. He mercifully allowed us to survive, they believe, in answer to our prayers, and they are certain it was His hand that led us home. I deeply respect the faith of my friends, but, to be honest, as hard as I prayed for a miracle in the Andes, I never felt the personal presence of God. At least, I did not feel God as most people see Him. I did feel something larger than myself, something in the mountains and the glaciers and the glowing sky that, in rare moments, reassured me, and made me feel that the world was orderly and loving and good. If this was God, it was not God as a being or a spirit or some omnipotent, superhuman mind. It was not a God who would choose to save us or abandon us, or change in any way. It was simply a silence, a wholeness, an awe-inspiring simplicity. It seemed to reach me through my own feelings of love, and I have often thought that when we feel what we call love, we are really feeling our connection to this awesome presence. I feel this presence still when my mind quiets and I really pay attention. I don’t pretend to understand what it is or what it wants from me. I don’t want to understand these things. I have no interest in any God who can be understood, who speaks to us in one holy book or another, and who tinkers with our lives according to some divine plan, as if we were characters in a play. How can I make sense of a God who sets one religion above the rest, who answers one prayer and ignores another, who sends sixteen young men home and leaves twenty-nine others dead on a mountain? There was a time when I wanted to know that god, but I realize now that what I really wanted was the comfort of certainty, the knowledge that my God was the true God, and that in the end He would reward me for my faithfulness. Now I understand that to be certain–-about God, about anything–-is impossible. I have lost my need to know. In those unforgettable conversations I had with Arturo as he lay dying, he told me the best way to find faith was by having the courage to doubt. I remember those words every day, and I doubt, and I hope, and in this crude way I try to grope my way toward truth. I still pray the prayers I learned as a child–-Hail Marys, Our Fathers–-but I don’t imagine a wise, heavenly father listening patiently on the other end of the line. Instead, I imagine love, an ocean of love, the very source of love, and I imagine myself merging with it. I open myself to it, I try to direct that tide of love toward the people who are close to me, hoping to protect them and bind them to me forever and connect us all to whatever there is in the world that is eternal. …When I pray this way, I feel as if I am connected to something good and whole and powerful. In the mountains, it was love that kept me connected to the world of the living. Courage or cleverness wouldn’t have saved me. I had no expertise to draw on, so I relied upon the trust I felt in my love for my father and my future, and that trust led me home. Since then, it has led me to a deeper understanding of who I am and what it means to be human. Now I am convinced that if there is something divine in the universe, the only way I will find it is through the love I feel for my family and my friends, and through the simple wonder of being alive. I don’t need any other wisdom or philosophy than this: My duty is to fill my time on earth with as much life as possible, to become a little more human every day, and to understand that we only become human when we love. …For me, this is enough.

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, ocean, and all the living things that dwell within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, the torpor of the year when feeble dreams visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep holds every future leaf and flower; the bound with which from that detested trance they leap; the works and ways of man, their death and birth, and that of him and all that his may be; all things that move and breathe with toil and sound are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, remote, serene, and inaccessible: and this, the naked countenance of earth, on which I gaze, even these primeval mountains teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, slow rolling on; there, many a precipice frost and the sun in scorn of mortal power have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, a city of death, distinct with many a tower and wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin is there, that from the boundaries of the sky rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down from yon remotest waste, have overthrown the limits of the dead and living world, never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; their food and their retreat for ever gone, so much of life and joy is lost. The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, and their place is not known. Below, vast caves shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, which from those secret chasms in tumult welling meet in the vale, and one majestic river, the breath and blood of distant lands, for ever rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

In the first few hours of driving we moved through flattened cow-sprinkled hills and leaf trees and dead elm skeletons, then into the needle trees and the cuttings dynamited in pink and gray granite and the flimsy tourist cabins, and the signs saying GATEWAY TO THE NORTH, at least four towns claim to be that. The future is in the North, that was a political slogan once; when my father heard it he said there was nothing in the North but the past and not much of that either. Wherever he is now, dead or alive and nobody knows which, he’s no longer making epigrams. They have no right to get old. I envy people whose parents died when they were young, that’s easier to remember, they stay unchanged. I was sure mine would anyway, I could leave and return much later and everything would be the same. I thought of them as living in some other time, going about their own concerns closed safe behind a wall as translucent as Jell-O, mammoths frozen in a glacier. All I would have to do was come back when I was ready but I kept putting it off, there would be too many explanations.

Salt Marsh Goddess by Michelle Joers "You may need a super-human super-hero super-natural god/dess, hammer or harp in hand, horse-bodied or jackal-headed, Lady of the Lake or Lord of the Seas.* But I have the deep, deep ocean and strong winds driving waves upon the shore driving me to my knees for absolution driving me to oblivion; I have a sun that warms tender shoots, crooning them from the loamy body of a Living Earth; The caress of the Willow branch as I lie beneath her roots, book in hand, and squirmy child in lap. The Salt Marsh Goddess speaks to me in ringing tones, as clear as any god of myth does for you & she speaks in a thousand tongues— Spartina, Juniperus, Myrica, Sesarma, Uca, Littorina, Malaclemys, Ardea, Alligator …just to name a few. I have prayed at her temple as the tide pours into my boots And divined my future with her bones I have bled for her | I have tasted her flesh And drank of her blood | And given her mine While you argue over how to resurrect gods of long passed cultures, I’ll be the one covered in mud and dancing with the rushes, celebrating a goddess born of glaciers.

In order to achieve the goals of the Paris Treaty – that global warming should not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius – CO2 emissions must be reduced to zero by 2050. In order to succeed, we will also need to invent technologies that remove CO2 from the atmosphere in quantities that are equal to all today’s emissions. This is one of the biggest challenges humankind has ever faced. What is being proposed is an unprecedented turnaround in the world’s energy mechanisms. And 2050 is exactly as far into the future as 1990 is in the past. Since 1990, emissions have increased from twenty-two gigatons to thirty-six gigatons. That’s a 60 per cent increase. To get emissions down to zero in thirty years sounds like an unmanageable task. Like constructing a time machine, thwarting gravity or inventing a pill for bringing someone back to life. No one knows whether it’s technically possible to capture thirty gigatons per year. The technology is at an early stage and no one has figured out buildings or infrastructure that could enable us to achieve our goals. Even if we reduce emissions by 50 per cent, our problems will still have increased if we do nothing to remove the carbon dioxide already in the air. If we don’t succeed in that project, the Earth will continue to warm, the glaciers will continue to melt and the sea levels will continue to rise, submerging cities and coastal areas. The market value of a 100 million barrels of oil is about $6 billion, assuming a $60/barrel price for oil. We therefore burn approximately $600 billion a day. If anyone thinks changing our sources of energy will

All of it vanished into the night—the fear, dread, doubt—everything. The awareness of my mortality dissipated with the intensity of the experience. Chaos became calm. Time became eternal. Immersed in the now, all sense of past and future disappeared. The mountain overpowered me in every way, yet I felt more in control of my fate than ever before. Here on this glistening glacier, with the countless number of unknowns ahead, nothing else mattered but the next step. The unknowns lost their influence over me. My entire world narrowed down to the few inches in front of me. I controlled what I would do within those inches.

Rising sea levels, for instance, “aren’t being driven primarily by glaciers melting,” Wood says, no matter how useful that image may be for environmental activists. The truth is far less sexy. “It is driven mostly by water-warming—literally, the thermal expansion of ocean water as it warms up.” Sea levels are rising, Wood says—and have been for roughly twelve thousand years, since the end of the last ice age. The oceans are about 425 feet higher today, but the bulk of that rise occurred in the first thousand years. In the past century, the seas have risen less than eight inches. As to the future: rather than the catastrophic thirty-foot rise some people have predicted over the next century—good-bye, Florida!—Wood notes that the most authoritative literature on the subject suggests a rise of about one and a half feet by 2100. That’s much less than the twice-daily tidal variation in most coastal locations. “So it’s a little bit difficult,” he says, “to understand what the purported crisis is about.

Let's imagine... if you glimpsed the future, you were frightened by what you saw, what would you do with that information? You would go to... the politicians, captains of industry? And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck! The only facts they won't challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in. But what if... what if there was a way of skipping the middle man and putting the critical news directly into everyone's head? The probability of wide-spread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it. To scare people straight. Because, what reasonable human being wouldn't be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they've ever known or loved? To save civilization, I would show its collapse. But, how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up like a chocolate eclair! They didn't fear their demise, they re-packaged it. It could be enjoyed as video-games, as TV shows, books, movies, the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon. Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you. You've got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one! Bees and butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, algae blooms. All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and you won't take the hint! In every moment there's the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality. So, you dwell on this terrible future. You resign yourselves to it for one reason, because *that* future does not ask anything of you today. So yes, we saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic. But you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you want to sink! You gave up!