7 glaciers melting

On the 7th day of Christmas my true love sent to me: 7 Glaciers melting…

All over the world, where there are glaciers, those glaciers are not as large as they once were a century, or even a few decades, ago:

Boulder Glacier, Glacier National Park, USA

1910

2007
Source: USGS Repeat Photography Project

Athabasca Glacier, Canadian Rockies

Photo by Idle Moor, downloaded from Panoramio.

Tschierva glacier, Swiss Alps

1880

2004
Source: swisseduc.ch
(other retreating Alpine glaciers)

Tasman Glacier, Southern Alps, New Zealand

Source: NASA

Glaciers are dynamic systems, but although there are some complexities in interpreting the behaviour of any individual one, when you see the same rapid shrinking trend in all of these different parts of the world, you stop looking for local causes.
As it is the New Year, and with the failure to reach any concrete agreement to cut our greenhouse gas emissions in Copenhagen still smarting, we should perhaps use this time to consider our own culpability in the mess. For until our leaders believe that they will gain more votes for making the hard choices than they will lose for damaging economic growth – until, in other words, we in the developed world start thinking that rather than becoming a little materially richer next year, it would be better if we made our planet a little less worse – the stalemate will continue. And whilst we rail against the failure of those we elect to curb our excesses, we buy more things, and use more energy, and worry if our economy does not grow at more than 3% a year. Somehow, no matter how much we have, there never seems to be a time when we will say, ‘we have enough’.
Perhaps the fault, dear readers, lies not within our politicians, but within ourselves.