Retreating Glacier In The Andes

The glacier on Cotopaxi, the beautiful snow-capped volcano south of Quito, Ecuador, came down nearly to the refugio above the lava plain on its North. A recent photograph shows a long, volcanic ash/gravel gulley leading up to the glacier above the refugio. In 1974 you would be well up on the glacier long before dawn. The light went into the ice and returned to your eyes a dazzling blue. We must learn to live with the radical changes we have brought. There was a cartoon called Pogo back then, about a 'possum in Okefenokee Swamp. His pronouncement on the environment was, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." -paraphrasing Admiral Perry after defeating the British in the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. We have to win this battle, too.