Melting Arctic Ice Has Consequences 466
OriginalArlen writes to tell us about some compelling global warming coverage in the Washington Post. First there is an article about a study indicating that melting Arctic ice is threatening polar bears with extinction. The article quotes an environmentalist: "This study is the smoking gun. Skeptics, polluting industries and President Bush can't run away from this one." And the polar melting is opening new shipping lanes. The second article details a trip late in October through the Northwest Passage by a Canadian icebreaker. Never before in history could this trip have been accomplished so late in the year; ice would have choked off the passage. Estimates of when the passage might be navigable by commercial shipping range from 2020 to the end of the century. The indigeneous people are not looking forward to this development.
Welcome to the world of tomorrow, Fry! (Score:2)
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've been frozen in arctic ice the past 6 years, were recently thawed out as a result of the melting ice, and have no knowledge of Bush's presidency or how powerful corporations are.
Welcome to the world of 2006!!
Bush and Global Warming (Score:2)
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Really? Where? (Score:2)
The Antarctic? Nope [nasa.gov]. Canada's eastern Arctic Archipelago? Nope [washingtontimes.com]. The Western Arctic? Nope. (See previous link) Greenland? Nope. [nsidc.org]
So, I ask you: where is it gaining?Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Welcome to the world of tomorrow, Fry! (Score:5, Informative)
Why not raise it across the board? Googling for "CAFE mpg 2000" and "CAFE mpg 2006" is revealing.
>The fact is that bush hasn't run away from environmental issues at all.
Correct. The "Healthy Forests Initiative" is hardly running away from an issue. Neither is the "Clear Skies Act", which if Wikipedia has their facts straight
The endless attempts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge are not "running away", either.
November 2004, changed the standard for allowing sewage to be dumped without complete treatment from "emergency" to any time it rains.
May 2002, tore up existing standards to allow Appalachian coal miners to bury mountain streams in waste.
Bush is not running away from the environment, he's making a frontal attack on it.
How dare they! (Score:2)
Repeat after me: There is no global warming!
And even if there is, it's not caused by humans!
And even if it is, there's no need to do anything about it!
Re: How dare they! (Score:2)
And even if there is, it's not caused by humans!
Ok, so...there have been past dramatic climate changes on the earth that have happend and were certainly not caused by humans.
I think an open minded person would have to say there are only two or three ways to go here. It is getting hotter, as it has done in the past, and people aren't causing it. It is getting hotter and people are the cause of it. It is getting hotter and it partly a normal cycle of the earth, and people do play some part in it, as well.
Re: How dare they! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, seriously, what made it so hot back in 1936? Was it just a natural occurrence, or was it man made way back then?
Transporter_ii
Poor practices of landowners (Score:3, Informative)
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I think you're confusing cause and effect.
Not the highest of the 20th Century (Score:2)
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Here are the Arctic temps for the 20th Century for everywhere above 70N [tcsdaily.com]
Here is Polyakov et al, 2004 [tcsdaily.com]
Funnily the polar bears didn't go through a big decline in numbers during the 1930s. The great scare about polar bears clinging on to ever dwindling clumps of ice is just that: a great scare. The polar bear populations (there are at least 13 or 14 distinct groups of them in North America) have, if anything, increased over the last 20 years with only one group d
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Are you saying that only a moronic fool would believe that people
are the problem, or are part of the problem because there have been
dramatic climatic changes in the past?
If so, that seems to be ignoring that we might be part of the problem.
Climatic changes happened in the past without human input does not mean
*necessarily* that *this* set of changes do not have a human component.
Shouldnt we find out?
Also, lets say, for argument, that people
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Anyone who can't grasp the concept of rate of change is rather likely to be a moronic fool.
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I think an open minded person would have to say there are only two or three ways to go here. The person is some type of "moronic fool" who doesn't understand the science despite their best efforts. The person is actually a shill whose livelihood depends on him and/or others not understanding
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Point taken. Now let me ask this. Suppose throughout recorded history, there was records of dramatic shifts in the toxicity of a certain food. And this certain food suddenly started making people sick again. Would it make it automatically true if someone told you that this food shifted from edible to
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You're right: the Earth has experienced dramatic climate change in the past. But every time it has experienced dramatic climate change, it has also experienced mass extinctions.
And considering how close most of the world's population lives to the ocean coasts, and how much we rely on a relatively small number of dwindling species for survival, can we really say that we're not going to be on the extinction list this time around?
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Considering all the people who already live inland (look at all the dense red inside Europe, India, and China on this map [maps.com]), and considering the slowness of the ocean rising (so those on the coast can move inland), we're not talking extinction. Unless ma
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You have to look at the scale of the change. In the last 600'000 years the CO2 levels never exceeded a certain threshold. We are now over that threshold roughly 2-
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Noone is talking about the doom of the human race, but I guess we'd all like to avoid moving 100-200 million people in the next few decades if possible.
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Like I didn't already know this. (Score:2)
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This gives the phrase... (Score:4, Funny)
Hey now.... This isnt fair!!!!!!!!!! (Score:2)
dah.... (Score:2)
Political Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
This has been presented before, and debunked before. This study [ncpa.org] shows that while ice is thinning in some parts of the arctic, it is thickening in others and the temperature change isn't uniform.
It also shows that the majority of polar bear populations are steady, with an equal number on the increase and decrease.
That shipping lane has been there before, and guess what -- there were polar bears around back then. Amazingly enough, polar bears aren't the hot-house flowers these people are making them out to be.
The climate is changing, that is for certain. The only thing more certain is that politicos and people who want gov't grants are going to exaggerate and hype every little anomaly beyond belief in order to garner attention and eventually money. What they hell ever happened to science for the sake of actual knowledge?
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Which is why he hasn't (Score:2)
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Debunked? Please come again (Score:2)
Here [wikimedia.org]'s a pretty picture for your convenience.
Re:Political Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
How do you tell science and political bullshit apart, other than by whether you like the result?
It happens that the "report" you quote is scientifically incoherent. I don't know much about polar bears, but I am very familiar with sea ice trends.
Arctic sea ice summer extent minima are rapidly retreating, and the best evidence is that perennial ice has shrunk by 40% ion the last forty years. It is reasonable to expect that all the perennial Arctic sea ice will go away in this century, both by extrapolation and by careful consideration of the thermodynamics and radiation budgets involved.
Real scientists talk about one issue at a time, and their opinions have a logical consistency rather than a political one. No one who is an expert on polar bears is an expert on sea ice mechanics.
The statement about Antarctica is a particlar howler.
"Moreover, while sea ice has decreased in the Arctic, it has remained relatively constant (or even increased slightly) in the Antarctic since 1978."
It's true enough but completely irrelevant. Have a glance at a globe. It might be worth considering that Antarctic sea ice has completely different origins than Arctic sea ice. If Antarctica melts, what happens to southern summer sea ice extent?
And why should polar bears care about the Antarctic anyway?
The paper you quote comes from a group that invariably highlights evidence against global warming and minimizes evidence supporting it. I don't know who funds it, but I have run into it before. I promise you it is not considered a scientific source; but go ahead an check the citation index and prove me wrong.
So, as someone who knows some of the scientists, who seem to me to be very serious people, I would say you have your bullshit and your science swapped.
I'm sure you won't take my word for it, but consider this. How, exactly, would you know?
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The word "environmentalist" makes me cringe, though not as much as the word "anti-environmentalist" does, I'll admit. I am just doing my part to explain the difference between the facts and the noise that is injected by people with many billions of dollars of fossil fuel assets that they are motivated to protect.
However, you are right that I do dismiss the contemporary crop of "global warming skeptics".
I
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OK. The article you linked says,
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Send warming up north! (Score:2)
OriginalArlen writes to tell us about some compelling global warming coverage in the Washington Post.
Send some of that global warming up here to Canada will ya? It is fracking cold up here at this time of year. Could use it right about now. Natural gas/taxes are lower when it is warmer too.
Cold winter in New Zealand too. (Score:2)
If you haven't seen in yet, you owe it to yourself (Score:2)
Part of the documentary deals with the disappearing/melting ice on the polar ice caps and at Greenland.
Sounds good. (Score:2, Funny)
Hell, I might go set a few gallons of crude oil on fire just to help out the cause!
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Not so fast. (Score:2)
Wanna bet?
Recent thoughts by Will Steger.... (Score:2)
Actually, Steger impresses me as a scientist first, with unsurpassed real leadership and planning ability for the great outdoors. He made the comment that in the future he will not be remembered
this is just economic change (Score:2)
Why blame Bush? (Score:2)
But my understanding is that this global warming thing has been known for decades. Besides, what is Bush supposed to do? Tax gasoline up to $20 a gallon?
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Over a decade or two, this might not be a bad idea while we transition to most sustainable modes of transportation i.e. electric vehicles, electrified freight railroads, and perhaps a bit more walking and/or biking. The energy can come from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar - there are plenty of viable sources other than fossil fuels.
To the naysayers that say that global warming hasn't been proven to be a problem:
(a) do we really want to
Medieval warm period? (Score:2)
So to the scare. First, the UN implies that carbon dioxide ended the last four ice ages. It displays two 450,000-year graphs: a sawtooth curve of temperature and a sawtooth of airborne CO2 that's scaled to look similar. Usually, similar curves are superimposed for comparison. The UN didn't do that. If it had, the truth would have shown: the changes in temperature preceded the changes in CO2 levels.
Next, the UN
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As I've said before, the use of fossil fuels carries enough other problems with it (air pollution, spills, wars over oil, etc) that their elimination would be a net gain for society even if they're not a culprit in global warming.
-b.
Not to worry (Score:2)
So just ignore those pinko hippie, gay marriage loving, America hating enviromentalists! They all will be thrown in the lake of fire anyway!
Less Pirates == Global Warming (Score:2)
Maybe I need to put together a power point presentation, or something...
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huh??? (Score:3, Funny)
I know they are usually huge and white, but other than that....?
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Oh wait, are you trolling again? (Score:2)
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But as I indicated elsewhere, Kyoto is flawed due to everybody trying to cheat. The only way past this, is to freeze everybody. If anybody does not want to belong to a kyoto II accor
Who's the troll? (Score:2)
The one who confuses "get to" with "makes", or the one who calls him on it? The GP clearly emphasized that no one is forcing China to increase its greenhouse gases. The GGP post (yours) implied that increasing greenhouse gases for China was somehow part of the plan of Kyoto. That's silly. No one wants China to increase its greenhouse gases. However, since they have much lower per capita greenhouse emissions than developed nations, Kyoto acknowledges that it would be very difficult for them to acheive modern
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It is.
"No one wants China to increase its greenhouse gases."
Except if they sign Kyoto.
"Kyoto acknowledges that it would be very difficult for them to acheive modernization without modest increases in greenhouse emissions"
That's hogwash. They just wanted to be let off easy, and got what they wanted.
"No one expects them to increase their per capita emissions beyond ours, however."
I have no doubt that
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That sure sounds to me like it would hamper non-developed countries, while doing little to the US, etc. Why should the US get to have much higher per capita emissions just because they got polluting earlier in the game? That my friend is the hogwash.
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The US has entrenched technology that will take decades if not centuries to phase out; coal and oil fired power plants, internal combustion engines for automobiles, oil, natural gas, and coal heat for homes, and so forth.
China has a great opportunity to go electric across the board from the get-go, using nuclear power and solar power. Their infrastructure is still immature, and as such there is no huge investment in existing power to speak of. I'm sure that the folks working in agriculture are still
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*snickerfits* Well this certainly clears up the objections he has toward the project.
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Screw that. Write it so it has one level of acceptable pollution for all. It's a theoretically simple formula: [Total Allowable Global Pollution] / [total world population] * [Country population]. Let less-developed countries sell their "share" to rich foreig
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Perhaps one approach is to come up with a target greenhouse gas amount, based on some reduction from the current total greenhouse gas emissions, then divide it by the population of the world, so that each person had a greenhouse gas amount associated with the
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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID =9509 [zmag.org]
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5058 [yale.edu]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_of_China [wikipedia.org]
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/20 06/jun/science/tw_chineseair.html [acs.org]
but
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The USA is the largest CO2 emitter in the world, either by per person [wikipedia.org] or by absolute numbers [wikipedia.org]. Pollution != CO2 output.
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The source can be found at the bottom of the page, which you would have found by very little effort.
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Then again - why not trust Wiki with everything... even given prior articles on Slashdot today
You can thank environmentalists (Score:2)
China is huge because it has a huge population. Ditto for India. Can you imagine how bad it would be if thay all approached the US's production of pollution per capita. Your article references just makes the case for global agreements that much stronger.
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They don't have to emit more greehouse gasses (Score:2)
Almost.. a good thing! (Score:2)
Current administration (Score:2)
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Honest mistakes, I swear (Score:2)
For the first link, I didn't realize it was password protected. As I have a University proxy account, I evidently got past the password protection without even realizing it was there. The second link was an copy-and-paste error.
Here's the most salient quote from the article: "President Bush concedes that humans are warming Earth but sees more research and better technology as the solution." Unfortunately, that's most likely doublespeak for "do nothing". Still, admitting you have a problem is an important
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Transportation is on the permafrost, only problem is that the frost is not really perma now, if you get my drift. Cars, houses, etc "sink". Pipelines have the same problem, making it a maintenance nightmare.
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Slow down with those asterisks, young'un. You may be excited but you're not correct. Arctic drilling and pipeline construction (remember, the oil has to get somewhere useful) depends on permafrost (look it up, zillions of
How about the Kyoto protocols? (Score:2)
How about the Kyoto protocols? [asianews.it]. A dandy solution. To stop global warming caused by greenhouse-gas emissions, the protocols have countries like India and China increase such emissions. That should solve the problem, right?
So here you've said it much more blatantly (Score:2)
Are you actually claiming that China and India would be in violoation of the Kyoto protocols if they decreased their emissions? Or, are you simply complaining that they're not forced to decrease them? There is a difference, you know. It reminds me of the time when an apartment complex claimed that the city was forcing them to raise the rates of their lowest priced units, when the reality was that the city was allowing them to raise the rates. A letter from the apartment complex actually blamed the city for
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I would not be surprised if that apartment complex owner was forced to pay excessive property taxes, which do have an effect of forcing the rates to go higher.
Re:This is like the 3rd article here on this subje (Score:2)
The US government currently gives away about $10 billion dollars to energy companies to do things such as oil exploration. We could easily shift a lot of that to research or nuclear plant incentives and potentially end up solving the problem with no net cost to your average business or
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Oooh! Analogies involving ice water! (Score:2)
Here's another one! What happens to the temperature of the water if you put a pot of ice water over a flame?
(Answer: the average temperature barely changes until all the ice melts. Then, it skyrockets! Luckily, we're not in a pot of ice water over a flame. Of course, neither are we in a glass of ice.)
"The level stays the same." (Score:2)
Are you being +1 funny, or -1 retarded?
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I call bullshit here.
You are telling me that there is enough ICE in places like antartica/greenland to raise the total volume of the ocean 200 METERS + the additional land area? I can believe a few meters, maybe 200 cm. Woooooo very scary. But 200 METERs... Go back and tell me where all this ice is now
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From wikipedia:
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Linking Creation "science" and AGW denial (Score:2)
I've always suspected there was a connection between creation science and anthropogenic global warming denial...
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