See Glacier Now!
Climate change is melting our glaciers. Billionaires will drain what’s left.
I hiked to Grinnell Glacier in the summer of 2000 with a class led by Dr. Dan Fagre. I hiked there again three years ago and didn’t recognize the landscape. Nothing is constant save change and now, climate change.
If you’ve not been to Glacier National Park and you’re able to make the trek somehow, I suggest you go, now. For a frame of reference, ice on the glacier pictured here was stable for tens of thousands of years until the last few decades or so.
The glaciers have started melting rapidly, like butter dropped on a hot griddle, so go while you still can. You can tell Montana’s children, who will tell their children, what Montana used to look like. These glaciers will likely be gone by the time kids who would be your great-grandchildren are the age you are now.
The cascading effects on the natural world will not be pretty.
The ecosystem in Glacier thrived on cold water from the glaciers for thousands of years. A stable climate and temperature allowed interdependent species to develop a rich bounty of biodiversity.
As global temperature rises, the tree lines are moving up the mountains. As ecosystems shift or disappear, entire species like stoneflys, ducks and wildflowers are lost. Soon, even our own species may be among them.
While I’ve seen humankind have great power to change their environment, I’m not sure we’re as handy at putting the natural world back how we found it.
We already know we are losing glaciers, snowpack, water security, and biodiversity, so why would Montana approve energy- and water-intensive data centers? We may not reverse every consequence of global warming overnight but we can decide not to make the problem worse.
Over 100 data centers are now planned for Montana. They will require enormous amounts of electricity and water at precisely the moment climate change is making both resources less certain. We’ve calculated so many of these costs and they don’t add up, not in this climate. We trust science. If we dismissed physics outright, we’d never have put a woman in space.
We’ve already given up too much to let a handful of billionaires take even more of Montana's water and power for private profit.
The science to predict and prepare for our changing climate is being dismantled. Weather and water monitoring, tracking species, simply reporting data is being criminalized because it mentions the word, “climate.”
Unless you are the CEO of a major multi-national energy company with the power to sway governments and regimes, you likely won’t be able to do much to stop the runaway global heating now causing dire weather and the climate and ecological issues that threaten our national parks, public lands, food supply, public health, and water.
Billionaires will certainly take even more of Montana’s water and power for private profit. We may not be able to stop the devastating climate changes this will cause, but we can stop data centers in Montana.
Science is clear: we are seeing more drought, deluge and extreme storms, more wildfire, more winter storms and less predictability. Physics doesn’t care about feelings, opinions, or a stock market ticker. There’s an energy equation at work that no opinion can put asunder.
One thing’s for 100% certain: Glacier National Park won’t look like this much longer.
We have a short window, right now, to see the last of an amazing natural world our children will not inherit. So, if Glacier is on your bucket list, see it NOW.
Take the Going to the Sun Road, hike around Lake Josephine. Hike to a glacier! Take a paddle board out on Lake McDonald in the summer, snowshoe to the Ox Bow at Apgar in winter, or have a picnic in a roadside park during the spectacular fall colors.
Wherever you are in Glacier, you will feel the majesty of the place and understand and experience wilderness like you never have before. Don’t hesitate. Just go. Start making plans now. This truly is a limited-time offer and supplies are running out.
We owe future generations of Montanans more than memories of what we failed to protect. Let’s not compound the damage by turning Montana into a server farm for billionaires.
