Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D.
by Dr. Roger Roots, founder of Lysander Spooner University.
In the fall of 2015 I offered a bet of $5,000 if the glaciers at Glacier National Park disappear by 2030 (as predicted in all GNP signage, pamphlets, films and publications). See here. As of yet, no one has taken me up on my bet.
The Park’s glaciers were melting rapidly throughout the 1990s, as the catastrophic-manmade-global-warming-by-CO2 movement was riding high. Bills were introduced in Congress for “cap and trade” programs, carbon taxes and other reforms.
The National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey published websites showing photos of the Park’s glaciers taken in prior decades next to more recent photos of the same glaciers. This ‘repeat photography’ showed massive decreases in the size of the GNP glaciers.
(I have often pointed out that the government’s photos from prior decades tended to not specify calendar dates. Because glaciers tend to build up in winter and then melt all summer long, the specificity of calendar dates is quite important.)
On January 8 of this year, I posted a prediction that the government would soon alter its GNP-glaciers-gone-by-2030 claims. See here. I asked, “What is the government going to do as 2030 approaches and it becomes clear that their preposterous claims are untrue?”
“I have no doubt,” I wrote then, “that the government will begin modifying these claims by 2025, if not sooner.” I began saving screenshots of government websites which make the claim that manmade-global-warming will melt the GNP glaciers by 2030.
It turns out I didn’t need to wait very long at all. Today, on May 4, 2016, I started looking for the government’s ‘repeat photography’ sites.
IT APPEARS THEY HAVE DISAPPEARED.
Today when you google “repeat photography” and “Glacier National Park,” you are redirected to general-info USGS sites with pictures of hikers in the mountains.
Fortunately, I have screenshots of the prior government projections.
Perhaps the webmasters at USGS are in the process of updating the ‘repeat photography’ sites.
Or perhaps Lysander Spooner University is already having an impact.
SIDE NOTE:
One can still find remnants of the government’s claims on some of its sites. For example, the USGS published a detailed numerical chart (see here) with data columns showing extensive melting between 1966 and 2005. The chart contains an astounding claim: “This table reflects area measurements analyzed from aerial photographs taken in 1966 and 2005. More recent suitable aerial photography on a parkwide scale has not been acquired to update this table due to seasonal conditions and financial constraints for contracted flights.”
This claim is astounding because research money intended to produce evidence for global warming has been pouring out over the past decade.
“Financial constraints”? Why do I suspect the USGS has chosen not to seek funds for new aerial photography because such photography will show that GNP’s glaciers have GROWN SINCE 2005.
