By Dr. Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D., Lysander Spooner University
East Glacier, Montana. September 9, 2018. Volunteer glacier researchers from Lysander Spooner University once again traveled to Glacier National Park (GNP) on September 8 and 9. This is the fourth straight year in which a delegation from the University investigated the government’s claims that the glaciers in GNP are melting away due to apocalyptic manmade global warming by carbon dioxide.
Agencies of the U.S. government publish various pamphlets, signs and websites which show pictures of GNP’s glaciers taken many years ago juxtaposed against more recent pictures of the glaciers appearing much diminished. The signs, films, flyers and pamphlets published by the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey all predict that GNP’s glaciers will melt away by either 2020 or 2030. (There is still a large diorama at the St. Mary Visitor Center which boldly suggests that manmade climate change will cause the Park’s glaciers to disappear by 2020—just a year and a half from now.)
A major flaw in the government’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ approach is the omission of precise calendar dates. Every Montanan knows that mountain glaciers grow for 9 months of the year and then melt for 3 months. Thus a picture of a glacier taken in June or July will always show the glacier much larger than will a photo taken in early September. Comparing one year (“circa 1952”) to another year (“2005’) can be highly manipulative. Only a year-by-year, date-by-date comparison of photos taken at the end of the melt season (generally around the second week of September) will establish whether a glacier is growing or shrinking.
This year (2018) it quickly became clear that the glaciers have grown substantially in recent years. A startling example is seen at the Jackson Glacier overlook on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The government has erected a sign with two photos: (1) the Glacier in 1911; and (2) the Glacier in 2009. The display shows the Jackson Glacier melting away to perhaps 10 or 20 percent of its 1911 size. But visitors to the marker in 2018 are able to look up above in the distance and see that the Jackson Glacier has grown significantly since 2009. The Glacier’s growth may be as much as 30 or more percent since 2009.
Elsewhere in the Park there are indications that the government is quietly seeking to conceal some of its hysterical claims of the past. Last year (2017) our video of the trash cans at the Many Glacier Lodge went viral. The large metal trash cans behind the Lodge depicted the Grinnell Glacier shrinking away over the past century. One trash can bore an image of the Grinnell Glacier in 1909 while the can next to it showed the Grinnell Glacier in 2009—diminished to perhaps 20 percent of the size of the 1909 Glacier depicted on the first trash can. In September 2017 we were able to show thousands of Americans a video of the two trash cans next to a digital photograph of the Grinnell Glacier taken the day before. And it seemed clear that the Grinnell Glacier has grown slightly since 2009.
This year when our team arrived at the location of the trash cans, we found that the two cans have been removed! It appears that the National Park Service is trying to hide the fact that the glaciers are growing!
Lysander Spooner University is the only research institution challenging the government’s Glacier Park climate hysteria. Literally, no one else—not the local newspapers, not the think tanks, not the government-supported universities or even the Boy Scouts—are doing this vital work.
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