Monday, February 4, 2008

The Game is up in Greenland

I knew the Giants could win. I thought they might win. But, in my heart of hearts, I knew the Patriots were going to pull it off at the last minute. I knew that, in the end, the Giants were toast.

Just like, when we talk about the Greenland ice cap... I like to hope that we can keep the whole thing from melting into the ocean. I want to believe that it could be possible to arrest the warming of the planet, slow down the melting of the huge ice cap, save the level of the oceans from rising and prevent all the other ecological disasters that await in a world of melted ice caps.

But, alas, in my heart of hearts, I know I have seen the film of huge waterfalls, cascading through fissures in the ice, I accept the logic of scientists who say that the lakes forming on the ice absorb exponentially more heat that the bright reflective snow and ice, and I think the ice cap is toast.

In fact I will not be surprised if the Greenland ice cap slips and slides into the sea a lot faster than anyone predicts. I am just afraid that science errs on the conservative side in its estimates, and fails to take into account the effects of all the simultaneous forces at work in the ice cap equation.

But this Super Bowl Monday, I ask, "can the Greenland ice cap pull off an upset?"