[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ken,
It didn't take much imagination to see the incredible melting of the glaciers in Alaska and Canada's Rocky Mountain ranges to know something is up. At several of the glaciers I visited, the retreat was measured in miles since just the 1950's. Even in the US, there are almost no glaciers left in Glacier National Park. In Barrow, the polar ice cap retreats more that 18 miles off shore during the summer, taking with it the local seal population on which the native people have depended for millenia. There is no doubt that warming is here, it's cause is what is in doubt. Considering the severe spike in temperature since 1900, it is hard not to imagine man has had something to do with it. Eighty foot rise in ocean levels means good bye to New York, Boston, L.A., most of Florida, Long Island, and most of the D.C. area as well. Pick your spot and it will likely be under water soon. I can only guess at the Pearl Harbor/Honolulu devastation but think of Island nations of the Pacific, Tahiti, Fiji, Guam, the Phillipines, the Solomons. Even Iwo Jima has more than 90% of the island only a few feet above sea level.