Listen

I tried to run away. I hid for quite a while. I had a rich life; I had incredible experiences, a very slow development of a certain musical world. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I can’t live there anymore. Because, in a sense, it doesn’t exist anymore. A piece like ‘In the White Silence’ is almost—I didn’t realize this at the time—almost an elegy for a place that has disappeared.

-- John Luther Adams, profiled in a Letter from Alaska.

Twisting science

Lacking studies, [Alaska] still disputes polar bear 'doom', reports Tom Kizzia in the Anchorage Daily News. Thanks to John Ryan for this.

Monsters

Four decades ago humpback whales had been hunted to the brink of extinction. Its conservation status remains "threatened (vulnerable)"The Japanese authorities have announced that a fleet will leave for the South Pacific on 17 Nov, with instructions to kill up to 1,000 whales, including 50 humpbacks.

I cannot at this moment find words strong enough to express my opposition to this.

But this is not just a Japanese disaster. As Peter Matthiessen recently reported, in Alaska the oil companies are endangering and likely killing bowhead and beluga whales.

[P.S. Ocean's Edge suggests signing the Greenpeace International petition to to set aside 40 percent of the world's oceans as no-take zones: "If we want fish tomorrow, we need marine reserves today. If we want whales tomorrow, we need marine reserves today. If we want to stop bottom trawling, we need marine reserves today. For healthy oceans -- we need marine reserves today"].

[P.P.S. A friend in Alaska, whose business it is to know about this sort of thing, criticises Matthiessen for not reporting that some tribes are actually in favour of further exploration for oil.]

Creaky ice movie

My friend John Ryan recommends this computer-generated video from the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington. It shows the record-breaking retreat of the polar icecap this summer.

Also worth a look is John's check story on Glacier Bay National Park’s rapid melt-off and "suspicions of an attempted coverup at the National Park Service".

"According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, September sea ice was 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000. Sea ice cover is in a downward spiral and may have passed the point of no return, with a possible ice-free Arctic Ocean by summer 2030".

-- from Melting Ice Pack Displaces Alaska Walrus