Jun 27, 2008 11:21 pm US/Central
In The Know: History Will Mourn The North Pole
(WCCO)
Scientists have come out with two startling reports recently. One, that north polar sea ice is melting three times as fast as originally predicted, and the most recent, there may be no North Pole to see by the end of the year, unless you have a submarine. Don Shelby said, whether one believes in global climate change is not the point. Today, it is history he mourns.
Before there was NASA and astronauts, there were people who traveled the earth known as terra incognita… the unknown. It was a thrilling time, whether explorers were trying to find the source of the Nile, or the Incan ruins in South America, or traveling over the ice to find the North Pole.
As a boy, and as a man, I read the accounts of Peary in the North. And the modern day explorers who trekked, skied or dogsled to the North Pole, John Louis Etiene, Lonnie Dupre, Ran Feinnes, Wally Herbert and Minnesota's own Will Steger, Ann Bancroft and Paul Schurke.
Now, the scientists are telling us that the chunk of ice they knew as the North Pole will be gone soon. To me, it's like hearing that Mount Everest is doomed, or the Grand Canyon.
It all could be part of a natural cycle. Most scientists who study the subject though, don't think so. If we are causing it, and I include myself… then I just think I'll go somewhere quiet and feel ashamed of myself.
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