August 31, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 15 I recently watched a three-hour marathon on PBS about the South Pole, the North Pole, and how to save America from our economic woes: It’s called emergency damage control. CeCe the ringed seal helped put an almost human face on the problem. CeCe, a roly-poly 173-pound ringed seal, was apprehended after a Labrador retriever sniffed out her den through the thinning ice of the northern polar cap and a group of scientists set a no-kill net trap for her. Catching seals is easier for polar bears and people since the ice and snow have been getting so thin that the seal’s dens are compromised. The scientists had to rush to the scene to pull CeCe out before she drowned, but they made it. Once pulled up by both flippers and looking rather indignant, CeCe was fitted with a Critter Cam, a waterproof video camera, and turned loose. The crew of scientists shortly found a backbone and a jawbone of a ringed seal eaten by a polar bear, but it wasn’t CeCe. I was pulling for her to make it, and she did – by getting caught in the same net by the same scientists. Cece was not at all aggressive and not skilled in escape and evasion. She would not have made a good Navy SEAL. But as a civilian seal she took some great underwater photos of what life looks like under the northern polar ice cap. The scientists discovered that CeCe uses air bubbles she exhales to find plausible holes in the ice so she can pop up and breathe without getting nabbed by a polar bear. They also discovered that CeCe drinks fresh water melting off the underwater bottom plate of the polar ice. No one knew that before. This seal deserves our gratitude. She also needs our help. Cece lives in and under the polar ice of the Arctic Circle, which has shrunk about 25 percent since 1997. The Arctic ice expanse now covers about three million square miles in summer, and six million square miles in winter. If global warming continues – and global warming is a scientific fact and not a myth – the entire Arctic ice shelf will have melted by the end of the 21st century. Animals that depend on the ice shelf will be extinct, a huge reserve of fresh water will be salt water, and the level of the world’s oceans will have risen to such an extent that many coastal areas will be under water, and the people who live there will be out of luck. Based on current patterns, the temperature on the edge surfaces of the northern ice cap could be 50 degrees Fahrenheit in summer. Here is more bad news, this time from way down south. Once upon a time, Antarctica was part of the single enormous continent that existed about 250 million years ago – the one mentioned in the biblical Book of Genesis, which is worth pause for thought. The single continent separated and gradually turned into the continents we know today: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica, which was still semi-tropical and the domain of dinosaurs. About 34 million years ago, changes in the Earth’s climate began to turn Antarctica into a polar zone of snow with an expanding ice shelf. About 14 million years ago, the cold became so intense that once An environmental lesson from CeCe the ringed seal frozen, it never again melted, except at the periphery. Scientists from the ANDRILL Project – a coalition of Americans, New Zealanders, Germans, and Italians – found ample evidence for this in a massive drilling project in 2010. They also studied evidence that during the Pliocene Epoch, five million to three million years ago, temperatures had increased enough to cause the ice that had formed 10 million years before to show significant melt. Even one degree of atmospheric temperature will cause melt from the bottom of the Antarctic ice. During the Pliocene Epoch, temperatures rose from three to five degrees and this caused a 23-foot rise in world sea level. Scientists found this by examining fossilized scallops and other marine life that are now exposed, but were once under the coastal ocean. Some sedimentary shells found in New Zealand suggested that the sea level could have risen 60 feet. The ANDRILL team and other scientists report that, through global warming now evident in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, Pliocene temperatures could be back by 2016. This would lead to coastal flooding that would jeopardize New York and Boston, drown Miami and New Orleans, and turn Venice, already experiencing serious troubles, into a memory of artistic grandeur. The temperatures of the Dinosaur Age – when there was no little or no ice anywhere on Earth, including both polar caps – could be back by the end of the century. That would mean a sea level increase of 150 feet, turning the New York skyline into a semblance of periscopes, or half-submerged tombstones. These guys aren’t making this up: In 2010, an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan broke off Greenland and started to float south. The fact that it never got to the middle of the Atlantic is both fortunate and menacing. The Chinese ideographic character for “crisis” is composed to two basic characters: one stands for “danger” and the other for “opportunity.” The danger is that if we sleep through this one, as we understandably did that revolting bipartisan hokum in Washington last month, we could lose not just exotic species but cities – maybe a civilization. The opportunity is that retooling the United States and the world to prevent global warming could offer thousands and perhaps millions of jobs for people who can make the devices that can stave off catastrophe. The effort needs to be bipartisan, just as the political goodies from the oil companies are bipartisan. The effort also needs to be nonpartisan. A few months ago, I watched a TV dialogue between a distinguished American environmentalist and a Chinese reporter in Beijing. The American environmentalist pointed out that China is now contributing to global warming through wasteful and old-fashioned energy-generation techniques that serve a billion people. The Chinese newscaster pointed out that the United States is the single greatest polluter on Earth due to massive automobile ownership, massive use of oil heat and air conditioning, and nonsense like the neon lights in Las Vegas. She also pointed out that it was condescending and racist for an American to deny the Chinese people an elevated lifestyle when the Americans deny themselves absolutely nothing whatsoever. I think the American scientist had wonderful ideas and was strongly committed to preventing global warming, but I think the Chinese newscaster won on points. Do we really expect the rest of the world to give up motor scooters to get to work while Americans drive huge, air-conditioned cars? During World War II, the street and store lights at seaside resorts were kept shining because the business people needed them, while U-boats used the lights to silhouette and torpedo merchant ships. Americans at the Jersey Shore were stunned to see seamen, some of them injured, coming ashore in lifeboats while seaside vacationers were swimming or playing volleyball. The fact that the lighting at the beach concessions turned the ships into easier targets never seemed to have bothered them. I think the crackdown into a seaside blackout took about six months. We may have six months to cut down on gratuitous waste of electricity by casinos, but we don’t have six years unless we want to lose Brooklyn, Miami, and maybe Manhattan, not to mention Atlantic City. One more point goes to the aforementioned Chinese newscaster: An artifact of the new Asian arrogance is the very same solar panel that Jimmy Carter brandished when he said America had plenty of oil and nuclear power and didn’t have to worry about solar energy. The Chinese keep it in a museum. Americans laughed at solar panels. China subsidized their manufacture. Who’s sorry now? Who’s doing more to save the polar caps: The people who shrugged off solar and hugged the oil companies, or the people who subsidized solar energy development? Any presidential jobs bill should focus on manufacturing and installing solar and wind energy generation devices, developing geothermal energy, improving residential and commercial insulation, and reducing the recreational use of electricity. The jobs bill, conversely, should reduce emphasis on highways, because automotive transportation is a huge part of the problem. State and local governments, instead of fighting solar panels, should sluice them into appropriate venues. The solar panels don’t belong on genuine historic buildings, but they do belong on modern schools, libraries, and on factories and warehouses. Local ordinances that support carpet-like lawns should be rescinded, and tree-cutting to make way for new construction should be banned outright. Municipalities should give awards for landscaping that eliminates traditional lawns and replaces them with trees, shrubs, and mini-habitats for wildlife. Maybe if we save CeCe, we can save the environment – not to mention Venice, Miami, and New York. Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: I am writing this letter to publicly thank and recognize Mr. Charles Rapp for the difference he has made in our son’s education. Mr. Rapp was our son’s fourth grade teacher this past year at Joyce Kilmer School in Mahwah. Mr. Rapp provided our son with a firm foundation from which he can move forward confidently into the upcoming school year and beyond. Mr. Rapp brings a unique love of teaching to his classroom that is immediately embraced by the children who are lucky to have him as their teacher. Every day, he goes beyond what is expected of him as a teacher, and he continuously shows the children different and exciting ways of learning. Our son, who did not have a positive educational experience before this, now has a love of learning and school that we attribute fully to Mr. Rapp. For the first time, our son looked forward to each day of school. Having four children, I have seen too many teachers who have lost their interest in teaching, which has unfortunate affects on their students. Not so with Mr. Rapp. Although he has been teaching for 14 years, it is apparent that he still truly loves what he does. The children in his classroom receive his love of teaching and learning that he passes onto them. This is a wonderful and powerful gift for any child. Mr. Rapp makes his classroom a holistic one, in that he not only teaches the curriculum set forth, but shows how it relates to real life. He teaches how to be patient and understanding with one another, and how to strive every Appreciates teacher’s positive influence day to be the best person one can be. He took an important transitional year for our son and prepared him better than any. Mr. Charles Rapp should be recognized for his excellence in education, and for the many young lives that he affects in such positive and powerful ways. I also hope the Mahwah Board of Education and school administration recognize what a great, unique, and wonderful teacher Mr. Rapp is, and that those teachers such as Mr. Rapp are the difference between children receiving an average education or an excellent education. Let’s keep Mahwah’s school standing moving forward by recognizing and keeping great teachers such as Mr. Charles Rapp. Gwen Frio Mahwah Dear Editor: I’m glad Mahwah citizens are concerned about the proposed mall development at the Crossroads. I was against the original plan for enlarging the Ramapo Center mini mall at McArthur Boulevard and Ridge Road. Thanks to public input, the plan was improved, and the project worked out nicely. Public input also improved the truck stop near Mahwah High School. Concerns about Crossroads involve problems of traffic, flooding, and a possible increase in taxes. However, even if the soil there is soggy, proper construction can be accomplished. Look at all the piers on the Hudson River. (continued on page 16) Standing at the Crossroads