Dans Papers - June 1, 2007 - The Green of Greenland

There is little doubt that I, from my living room, have one of the most spectacular views in the Hamptons. It looks out over Three Mile Harbor, past the boats tied up in their slips to a sunset over the far shore. And it is safe from the effects of global warming. Or at least until today I have thought it was. The house is on the side of a hill seventeen feet above sea level. And though, as the crow flies, the front of my house is seventy-one feet from the water, the formidable presence of Three Mile Harbor Road passes between us. It would take quite a blow for Three Mile Harbor to rise up seventeen feet, cross the road and cause damage to my house and the others like it here on our grand hillside.

But then, today, I read about the changes going on in Greenland. Up until now, I have always felt sorry for this island. When the Vikings discovered it up there in the north country above Canada, they named it Greenland as some kind of joke. It is, in actual size, the biggest joke on the planet. Bigger than the United States, Greenland is probably visible from Venus and Mars. And unlike the United States or almost anywhere else on earth, there is nothing green about it. It's covered with ice and snow. Greenland? What a joke. Ha.

The changes that Greenland is going through consist of a great unveiling. The ice is cracking and breaking away, with explorers who set foot on that island reporting the sound of it cracking and rumbling and another big one-acre-sized chunk breaking off and sliding into the sea about once an hour.

And guess what? Underneath all that ice, it's green! Or, within a year or two as the moss appears and other things grow, it will be green. There was a report in the papers last week that what was believed to have been a peninsula sticking out from Greenland to the west, is, in fact, with the ice now all away, an island. Not a big island, mind you. A small island, like Gardiner's Island. And so they have named it. On future maps, it will be indicated as Warming Island, the new island off the coast of Greenland.

Personally, I have tried to take a cheery view of global warming as it comes down the pike. We will be having balmy winters in the Hamptons. Flowers will bloom. We will soon sprout palm trees. We'll have winters filled with flamingos and butterflies. Maybe we will have steel drum concerts. And surely, as those poor states down south suffer in unbearable summer heat, we'll have a mass migration of people moving north to the Hamptons and we will prosper as never before.

On the wall in my living room, I have a special clock that tells me when the tide is high or low. There is a particular spit of land that juts out from just beyond Gardiner's Marina that gives me a good measurement of how bad, if at all, things get. At high tide, much of this spit of land has always been slightly underwater as wetlands. At low tide, the spit of land is dry and you can walk out there, which I have done from time to time. I've lived looking out at this and marking the spot for thirty years. So far, so good. I see no change.

But what they tell me about Greenland is that as it gets back at us for giving it a name that is a thigh-slapper, the ice, like some sort of gift wrapping, falls away and it floats off into the sea, and slowly drifts south and melts. And the sea levels rise.

"In calculating the effects of global warming," one scientist said, "nobody expected that the ice cap covering Greenland would melt at this time. It was thought it would hold out until mid-century. But here it goes."

Instead of the sea levels rising by one inch in the next half a century, the sea levels will -- because of Greenland -- will, well, the results are not in. But it can be said with certainty that when the entire 630,000 cubic mile gift wrap ice melt falls away into the sea, the sea levels around the world will rise twenty feet.

So what I figure, always trying to look at the cheery side of global warming, is that all this wonderfully pure ancient water will be so refreshing and good for you that we can bottle it and sell it, except you might have to look out for an occasional woolly mammoth tooth or something. Also, since my house is at seventeen feet up above sea level, I will build me a three-foot tall seawall and that will keep the Harbor out. And I will be WATERFRONT.

People will come by who haven't been here for a while and will be pleasantly surprised.

"Wow! Hey! Waterfront! When did this happen?"

And I'll shrug and say "Greenland. You know."

Have you any idea what my property is going to be worth as waterfront? It's worth a lot as it is now. But add waterfront and it staggers the imagination. The sun sets over the harbor across the way, the boats will be tied up in their slips all around, and the road will be at the bottom of the harbor. Is this heaven or what?

Want to come over? Since there'll be no road, you'll come by boat. From where, I don't exactly know. But when you get here, you'll tie up and clamber ashore and we'll have a party. Lots of liquor, canapees and I'll make those little tiny hamburgers on the grill. Maybe we'll have a steel drum concert.

As for that peninsula I used to keep track of, well, at low tide it will still appear, but as an island. We'll NAME it. We'll have a naming party.

By the way, fifty years from now I will be over a hundred years old. But that's another story.