The Last Glacier

The Last Glacier?

It had the tragic beauty of a rare animal about to become extinct, or of a fire sparking brightly only to fizz out in the only source of home heat in the middle of winter . It was the last glacier on earth. For thousands and thousands of years it had lain in a valley that could not be seen at as it was covered with layers of long frozen ice. Now the valley was visible. And the glacier was shrinking, alone, without fellows in its demise.

From not far away a solitary scientist named Nicholas observes the glacier. Early in his career, he had written about glaciers, but this is the first one he has seen this close in about a decade. His initial specialty had been the creatures that lived most comfortably with the cold, from the large ones, the polar bear who now only lived in sanctuaries and zoos, to micro-organisms, easier to observe close up.

           Concerning the latter, he had early in his career been part of high profile research teams of the 2030s. They had investigated the deadly potential of the ‘reawakening from the long frozen ice’ (as the research proposal put it) of ancient viruses, and bacteria such as or related to Clostridium botulinum – botulism, or of more recent vintage Bacillus anthracis – anthrax coming from long dead reindeer and their relatives. Some bacteria had been ‘asleep’ for thousands of years, maybe longer perhaps as one wild-eyed scientist put it, maybe over a million years. There was a bit of a scare for a while. Nicholas’ parents were anxious that he had every kind of vaccine shot possible before he embarked on his research to prevent his being infected.  They stood back from him a couple of paces and did not hug him right away in the airport when he returned from his first expedition to Antarctica.

But the scare had diminished as no ‘glacier borne plague’ had occurred. More recently, to further his goal of receiving professorial tenure at the university, he wrote papers about the work he and others had done on the subject a few years back. Nothing new was in sight in that area. With the almost disappearance of ice at both poles, there was little interest, academic or public, in further investigating the subject of the reawakening ‘killer bacteria’. Biological research was directed in most of its sub-fields to finding ways to overcome the devastation of climate change. With the fires, the extremes of temperatures, and the flooding, some scientists had stated their belief that in the last ten years they were left with 10% of the biodiversity that had existed prior to the major shifts in the climate.   

 Feeding the world was now the foremost priority. Crops had fried in the fields. Cows have cooked in the pasture. Apples baked in the branches. Pigs had sizzled in their sties. His work didn’t deal with that. And he had no new direction in his research.

           But he had to come and see the last glacier. He hadn’t set himself any research goals. He hadn’t applied for money to go to the extreme south. He just had to see it, so he financed it himself. This itch of his scientific and his general curiosity had to be scratched. And then there was the sense that it was like visiting a dying friend or family member in a hospital. If he didn’t see the glacier now, he would never get another chance.

He Stands Before the Glacier

So here he stands in Antarctica, where penguins used to live but no more, staring at the last glacier on earth. Even though it was smaller at this moment than many he had seen in the past, and it was dramatically shrunken from what it had been during many thousands of years, there was still something majestic about it that filled him with awe and admiration.

As he looks each day at the slowly retreating edges of the glacier, he sees something that he had not expected. There is at the edge nearest to him a shade of green that he hadn’t seen in his last trip down to Antarctica, a green he had not been witness to in any of the dying glaciers he had visited before. It was so incredibly dark, almost black.

When he arrives where the dark green lifeform is, he takes samples. He has a crazy idea as to what makes the tiny organisms so dark. This might be a great find! He has always been a dreamer as a scientist.

Returning to the Science Station

With samples carefully secured, he moves quickly to the all-terrain vehicle he borrowed from the science station. He has to be careful with its speed. He could not afford to lose the samples.

After what seemed hours longer than it actually was, he makes it safely back to the science station. When he runs into the main laboratory of the building complex, breathing heavily and clutching his sample bags tightly like they contained gold, or diamonds, or food for tonight’s supper, he is greeted first with stares. But once his name is mentioned, there is a nodding of heads. He is well known for his many publications, and his presentations at conferences.

Breathlessly he asks,  “Is there an available lab in which I can conduct some experiments?” No one asked why, although some of them wondered. He was soon directed to a lab.

The Experiment

The room he was given was ideal for what he wanted to do. It was a confined space in which he could keep the air in most of the time, and outside air out. Sunlight was available on one side, which is something else he knew that was needed.

He borrowed the equipment that he required for his experiment. High-powered microscopes, of course were needed and supplied. He also asked for a GCMS, a powerful instrument for sampling the chemical content of the air. This was very important as well.

So for the next few days he analyzed the micro-organisms and sampled the air. He separated some of them from the others, and brought in some collections of  biological material from a variety of different plants. What he found was even better than he could have imagined. He recorded his findings very, very carefully. This was going to be the most important research of his life.

Announcing the Results

After two weeks’ research he was ready to announce his preliminary findings. Every scientist at the station gathered in the small lecture theatre to hear what he had to say. He began his speech by asking two questions that he knew everyone there would know the answers to. “Why have trees delayed the effects of climate change?” and “What are stem cells?” As expected, the answers from his fellow scientists went something like this “Trees take in carbon dioxide, store the carbon and release the oxygen, thereby reducing the carbon dioxide in the air.” And “Stem cells are cells that are yet to be programmed as to what they are to become. They can develop into a great variety of cells.”

He responded by saying, “What I have discovered is a micro-organism that proportionately absorbs much more carbon-dioxide than do trees as we know them to be. It was probably necessary in the time that it first lived. That is likely why it is so dark. After two weeks of experimenting, the air in my lab contains very little carbon dioxide. It is the oxygen-purest air I have ever sampled. This micro-organism has a huge appetite.” 

“There is something else special about this micro-organism It works like a stem-cell When mixed with unrelated plant material, the initially identical organisms develop into different kinds of lifeforms. In one area of the lab, I dropped a few freshly cracked open acorns in their midst, and now there are trees growing like I have never seen before. They are darker than oak trees, and a little slimy, but they grow quickly when fed carbon dioxide, faster than any tree we now know. A few are already four feet tall, and I know they will be even taller tomorrow. I have marked their changing height on the wall over the last few days, like parents do the growth of their children.”

“The last glacier on earth has given us a means by which we can potentially change the climate back to one friendly all life forms on earth. Maybe someday, we will have glaciers again. And a planet that is once again healthy