THE HEADLINE:  “An Antarctic deja vu”

The free paper at the Metro station on March 17 reveals the natural world is MELTING in the background.  You don’t see it, but it’s happening. Something a bit off kilter? The world coming to an end of its present self? A concern?

The Bible says it will be wars and rumors of wars that are the big clue to the end of days … but our environs are changing and threaten to sneak up on us with still other dramatic surprises.  Normal days will end and abnormal days will be upon us as sea levels alter the map over the entire face of the globe. We see it coming, eyes wide open, but stare at the blinding light of global change like deer paralyzed by headlights of on coming car … WHACK!  Then it hits us … but in this case coastal cities in the modern world will be the new watery Venice and Venice will be inundated and condemned by submergence.

The article gives us reason for calm by saying we won’t see the ‘WHACK’ in our lifetime. The process of sea level rise may take some time.  So lets go burn more fossil fuels and make some more heat! Yet our world won’t be the same for our kids, because sea level rise seems certain and from global human activity we “…have irreversibly destabilized the great ice sheet of West Antarctica and thus set in motion more than 10 feet of sea level rise.”

Read on … because the free paper’s article leaves out something provocative and alarming …

The Sub Header: “Ice in west may cause a massive sea level rise. Now the east threatens, too”

When ice at the South Pole melts, this is what to expect: “Meanwhile, 2015 could be the year of the double whammy – when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again. Northern Hemisphere residents and Americans in particular should take note: When the bottom of the world loses vast amounts of ice, those of us living closer to its top get more sea level rise than the rest of the planet, thanks to the law of gravity.”

In the East of Antarctica is … “the Totten Glacier of East Antarctica – the fastest thinning sector of the world’s largest ice sheet – and [scientists] took a variety of measurements to try to figure out the reasons behind its retreat. And the news wasn’t good: It appears that Totten, too, is losing ice because warm ocean water is getting underneath it.”

Added to the Western ice and a potential 10 feet of sea level rise, the Western “… glacier holds back a much more vast catchment of ice that, were its vulnerable parts to flow into the ocean, could produce a sea level rise of more than 11 feet – which is comparable to the impact from a loss of the West Antarctica ice sheet.”

HERE is the Kicker as they say … 

First, what goes on at the southern pole is only part of the story.  Up north, the Greenland ice sheet is also melting, shifting, and adding to sea level rise, now. The article on Antartica suggests some 20 plus feet of sea level rise … add to that what Greenland has to add and the ‘not in our lifetime’ might not hold up if the rate of ice melt increases – globally!

Second, and perhaps more universally than at the South Pole alone, scientist worry about an unstoppable melt … “The problem, then, is that once such a gigantic geophysical process begins, it’s hard to see how it comes to a halt. “With warming oceans, it’s difficult to see how a process that starts now would be reversed, or reversible, in a warming world,” Siegert said.”

CONVERGENCE IS UPON US

The WindowView web pages all hinge on the idea that changes in the globe, evidence from the sciences, and the harmony in Scripture all reveal something certain … foretold, hedging humanity into humility and to the point of bending a knee and acknowledging we were put here not to glorify ourselves, but instead to recognize the One who gave us life in the first place. The Earth cannot bear us any longer. We are wearing out the planet like a coat going thread bare … with no place to escape to, we are destined to face the ultimate truth … and God knows what that is. (no, that is not a pun, it is in fact truth)

Quotations from the March 17, 2015 Express (Washington, DC)

Director, WindowView.org