Learning to Speak Climate

[XemaSab]

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: August 5, 2008
Ilulissat, Greenland

Sometimes you just wish you were a photographer. I simply do not have the words to describe the awesome majesty of Greenland’s Kangia Glacier, shedding massive icebergs the size of skyscrapers and slowly pushing them down the Ilulissat Fjord until they crash into the ocean off the west coast of Greenland. There, these natural ice sculptures float and bob around the glassy waters near here. You can sail between them in a fishing boat, listening to these white ice monsters crackle and break, heave and sigh, as if they were noisily protesting their fate.

You are entirely alone here amid the giant icebergs, save for the solitary halibut fisherman who floats by. Our Greenlandic boat skipper sidles up to the tiny fishing craft, where my hosts buy a few halibut right out of his nets, slice open the tender cheeks and cut me the freshest halibut sushi I’ve ever tasted. “Greenland fast food,” quips Kim Kielsen, Greenland’s minister of the environment.

We wash it down with Scotch whiskey cooled by a 5,000-year-old ice cube chipped off one of the floating glacier bits. Some countries have vintage whiskey. Some have vintage wine. Greenland has vintage ice.

Alas, though, I do not work for National Geographic. This is the opinion page. And my trip with Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, to see the effects of climate change on Greenland’s ice sheet leaves me with a very strong opinion: Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/opinion/06friedman.html?hp

[IndyOp]

1. Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day.

I am angry with Thomas Friedman and everyone who thinks this is a "one day in the future" problem instead of a TODAY problem. It is TODAY! TODAY! TODAY!

Friedman -> F-

:thumbsdown:

[XemaSab]

2. That wasn't my reading of that line at all

My interpretation is that Friedman thinks we should have been working on this for YEARS, and we should be working on it TODAY, and future generations are going to be left to sweep up the mess from our party.

A party which Friedman bought the booze for. :P

[IndyOp]

3. My take on Friedman is always jaundiced...

In my opinion he seems always ready to put off onto the shoulders of the next generation what he himself should be doing.

:hi:

[XemaSab]

4. He's not my favorite

This is about the first column from him in... oh, 7 years or so that I actually liked. :P