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New tax-free savings account on the way - Monday, October 27, 2008
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Cece Hodgson-McCauley
Focus on our neglected youth - Monday, October 27, 2008
Antoine Mountain
George Blondin, our Dene story-teller - Monday, October 27, 2008
Bill Gawor
No fear of melting ice caps - Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Navalik Tologanak
Cam Bay Tea Talk - Monday, October 13, 2008
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No fear of melting ice caps

Horseshoe Nails & Bowhead Whales
with Bill Gawor

Guest columnist
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Previous columns 

Contrary to common belief, the polar ice caps at both ends of the globe are in no great danger of disappearing any time soon.

While massive sections of ice have been known to break off and float away during the past century, it's no big deal, but, rather, a natural cycle of nature.

Regular massive infusions of ice into the oceans are necessary in order to keep the world's temperature normal.

While some islands along the Greenland coast are slowly emerging out of the ice, after being buried for thousands of years, due to rising temperature - this same one degree of warming is also increasing Greenland's ice mass due to increased snowfall.

Proof that parts of the Greenland ice cap are presently increasing in overall size can be best illustrated by the strange case of the lost squadron of 1942.

During the Second World War, on July 15, 1942, two giant B-52 bombers were being escorted by six P-38 fighter planes to England from Happy Valley Goose Bay, Nfld.

They ran into a freak summer blizzard over Iceland and had no alternative but to return to a secret base in Greenland.

They barely made it over Greenland's south-east coast when all their fuel gauges fell to empty.

There was no choice but to land safely on the ice cap.

After disarming the aircraft of cannons and machine guns, all personnel were safely evacuated by dog team to a supply ship called the Comanche.

By the early 1990s, when the concept of global warming was gaining popularity, one of the surviving pilots figured the airplanes should still be high and dry, just waiting on top of the glacier.

He envisioned a simple matter of going back to the icecap, fuelling up and taking off.

Imagine his surprise and frustration when no sign of the planes could be found.

Had someone else beaten him to the planes and flown them off?

For two summers his team searched, but to no avail.

Finally, with the aid of some type of radar device, three kilometres down the glacier from the original landing site under 75 meters of compressed ice, the entire squadron was located in the same formation they landed in 48 years previously.

Unfortunately, the planes were all compressed flat as pancakes from the tremendous weight of the ice.

At a cost of millions of dollars, one of the bombers was eventually dug out in pieces and sections.

Eventually, back in the U.S.A., the B-17 was restored and actually completed the flight to England some 50 years late.

Accumulated snow is also being compressed into ice at the South Pole, but at a lesser rate than on Greenland.

Back in 1911, polar explorer Amundsen abandoned his camp and gear at the South Pole when he made the return dash back to his ship.

That camp is still frozen under 40 feet of ice.

So there is no reason for climate warming to become a major problem, since we have the two polar ice caps to act as nature's air conditioners for centuries to come.

Surely that's enough time to learn how to best curb the planet's human population, and find an alternative to producing greenhouse gases.