by Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D.
With all the current talk about catastrophic global climate change, one would think governments would want to bolster their doomsday claims with hard data. But the US government’s “Status of Glaciers in Glacier National Park” data table, available on the USGS website at Status of Glaciers in Glacier National Park | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov), has not been updated in EIGHT (8) years.
For years, a small group of government “scientists” have been publishing, announcing, and predicting that all glaciers in Glacier National Park are nearing extinction. Lysander Spooner University has been the only institution that has dared to challenge these claims.
This small group of heavily-funded government scientists exists in utmost privilege, advantage and luxury. At least one book has been written about them (“The Melting World,” available in GNP bookstores). Their every word and proclamation about melting glaciers is repeated in “news” media without challenge. They are allowed to testify in Montana courtrooms without any material cross-examination by Montana government lawyers .
But the last year of “data” regarding glacier size was published in 2016. For data gathered in 2015. That’s EIGHT-YEAR-OLD data. In the past two years I myself have authored TWO articles on the government’s manipulation of data. (The government purports to show massive percentage reductions in GNP glacier size by comparing contemporary size numbers with estimates gained from MAPS drawn in the 1960s. (You can’t make this up.)
My emails with a representative of the USGS in Bozeman, Montana led to statements that the government had completed aerial photography flights for size determinations IN SEPTEMBER 2021. For those who need reminding, 2021 was an extreme drought year across Montana which set numerous records for lack of rainfall. GNP’s glaciers did indeed melt more than during other summers. I’ve been expecting that the USGS would soon release their “Glaciers Melting Faster than Ever”-type headlines at any moment.
But what happened? Why hasn’t the government published new data? Could it be that data fudging or cherrypicking has caught up to the USGS? The current NPS pamphlet “Climate Change in National Parks” states that glaciers and ice sheets “are shrinking at an accelerated rate.”
Could it be the government doesn’t want to produce data which refutes their claims?
