To get your weekend off to a cheery start, I give you this article from The Independent:
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
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If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.
Yes, they'll plunder and pollute that area, too, to produce more of the oil and gas, the use of which contribute to further global warming. As I said in an email to Lapin, who sent me the link to the article, "Sometimes, I'm glad that I'm old. What kind of world will my children and grandchildren inhabit?"
Well now, everyone knows the science of global warming is false and Gore should shut his mouth......was what I read elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteEven if the planet does have its own climate cycles that does not give us the right to carry on being dreadful stewards. Quite the opposite: it intensifies the need for us to take climate change and our contribution to it even more seriously.
There are a number of countries which are reluctant to jeapordise their economic vested interest on this and make real change, but the tide is most definately turning.....in most places.
Who is the biggest polluter, has the greatest resistance to change and could be an incredible moral force for leadership on this?
The rest of us waiting guys and we are getting impatient.
DP, I know, I know. Perhaps our next president will join the world of reality and push for better laws and use the office as a bully pulpit to encourage the citizens to do more.
ReplyDeleteAnother item that I heard referred to, in passing, while I was in the car yesterday. I spend way too much time in cars.
ReplyDeleteThis really bothered me. It's like all the signs of impending crisis are there right in front of us all, and it's a collective failure of imagination that seems to keep us from acting effectively to do anything about it.
The experts say that it's already too late to reverse the course of global warming, but, at the very least, if we do the right thing, we might slow the approach of the worst of the effects.
ReplyDeleteI think that maybe a little of the north will get flooded but not much.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems that if it is getting hotter and the ice is melting faster,
WOULDN'T THE HEAT JUST EVAPORATE MORE WATER BECAUSE IT'S GETTING HOTTER, and just cause more rain?
That's what i think. how about everyone else?
Taylor, we will see all sorts of consequences, the great majority of which will disastrous. The jury has given a verdict.
ReplyDeleteTaylor, sea ice melting will not raise the sea level. It's the land ice that is the most serious problem, though the sea ice melting will raise temperature too because the sea absorbs heat and the ice reflects it.
ReplyDeleteBut when land ice goes, it runs into the sea, raising it. The worse problem, which I've only heard of this past month, is that the unprotected land in the arctic will then give up its permafrost, which is a methane sink. When the methane gets into the atmosphere, it will multiply the greenhouse gas effect by many times (methane being a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2). This may start a cycle that will be beyond our control, and lead to temperature rises that will not just be problematical, but lethal.
Have a nice day, all...
Tobias of Gloom
Tobias of Gloom
ReplyDeleteI will remember to use your full name in the future.