Larsen Ice Shelf Collapses 1250
Cally writes in: "The BBC reports that the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica, a 200m thick ice floe covering 3,250 sq km, has disintegrated. This is terrible news. The widely respected British Antarctic Survey are quoted as saying "We knew what was left would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering[...] [It is hard] to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month." As a Greenpeace member who's been following the debate for over a decade, it's hard not to feel aggrieved at those with their own agenda who have pushed the theory that global climate change isn't happening. Risk = probability x consequence..." The big iceberg is a separate event.
Re:Oh my goodness no! (Score:2, Interesting)
However, the picture generally in Antarctica is a complicated one with temperatures in the interior actually falling over the same period.
Who caused the Ice Age? (Score:2, Interesting)
In addition to that, we produce carbon dioxide thru processes like, say, breathing. Carbon dioxide is what plants breathe with. More C02 means more plants! Oh no!!!
Finally, who caused the last Ice Age? But more to the point, who raised the global temperature enough to get us out of the Ice Age? Actually, nobody knows for sure, but I highly doubt it was because the cave-men had too many campfires.
Perhaps we can change the global temperature to some small degree (no pun intended), but the natural processes that take place on the earth (volcanoes, most notably) do much more to raise the global temperature than Man could ever hope to achieve.
Yup, it sucks, but we're pretty much at the mercy of our planet. Not the other way around.
Salinity? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Quote:
And Greenpeace doesn't have it's own agenda ?
Re:If global warming was real... (Score:2, Interesting)
Good quote from the article: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention what someone else said, that even in the 80's there were concerns about a "New Ice Age".
Personally, I think global warming is due to there being 6 _billion_ people producing heat.
Re:The earth changes.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The earth changes.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you will find that 1653 corresponds to the earliest date reasonably accurate temperature measurements were taken and recorded, so the quote should probably have read "2001 was the warmest year in the last 350 years". Ironically, it is this misunderstanding of statistics that Bjorn Lomborg goes to some length to discuss in the book you reference.
To study before that we have to look at tests such as lake bed pollen sediment analysis, to see now plant species have migrated in response to changing local climates. Climatic change is definitely occurring at present at a much faster rate than the past 1000 years. However, the link between this and CO2 is far more complex and difficult to prove.
Re:Oh my goodness no! (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be prudent that humans don't trash what we have. But we have been tracking things like this and weather for only two or three centuries. We can't make conclusions based on so little data.
Ultimately, there WILL be global warming and it WON'T be a causation of humanity. It won't happen for about 10 billion years as the sun expands while its fuel supply dries up, but it will happen.
Ice ages and desert conditions are almost certainly cyclical. We haven't been around long enough to track a pattern (that doesn't mean we shouldn't TRY). Many "environmentalists" are not scientists but nature enthusiasts, nothing more. That's not bad, just not a great way to plan--it creates a "sky is falling" philosophy from people who are not trained to interpret real data.
Environmentalists are to blame, IMHO, for trying to convince others that the world is a Gaia, balanced and pristine. It is not. It is changing, it is hot, and it could care less under the surface whether humans or other life rests above it when it creates a new volcanic vent.
But the Earth is resilient. It will be OK after a few thousand or million years if a heat wave wipes half of its life away or if a small rock hits us. It's the arrogance of humans who think they are the hottest crap since God to believe that they aren't responsible for their actions or their future (hint: the Earth will not always be the fine place to live as it is now).
I can't wait to hear what environmentalists will say when the Earth does its periodic magnetic pole reversal.
Re:The earth changes.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I read a random sample of them and most of them were, to a certain extent, ad hominem. Also the rebutals were not at all definitive. They left a lot of room for further debate, as Lomborg's reply in his website show. Quite strikingly, the magazine denied the right of reply to Lomborg.
All in all the scientific community has done a very shoddy job at debunking Lomborg (which is not to say he's right).
Global Warming: Much ado about funding (Score:2, Interesting)
most likely the case (Score:2, Interesting)
Now gas and oil energy is of course bad in the long run. But who here thinks we are strong enough to actually kill our world in the next 50 years? Seems pretty arrogent to me. And if you think so I'm sure you were the same people who thought those horrible factories in the 1930s which produced pure black smoke would have killed us by 1980. Somehow we survived.
Now who thinks in 50 years we won't be using water, wind, solar, hydrogen, and fusion power? Its hard to imagine we won't. In 10 years we should be seeing electric cars in large cities all the time. So to think in 50 years that we won't automatically save ourselves is a little foolish.
Our main problem will be getting asia and south america (and who knows if Africa will be industrializing by then) to switch over after Europe and the US does. That may take forever.
Now do I support corporations saving every last dollar to destroy the earth? No, but I understand that these same evil corporations that are destroying our earth will eventually save our earth for the same reason. Money.
Re:If global warming was real... (Score:2, Interesting)
I couldn't say whether that's true or not (though certain American cars that are allowed in the US do not meet European emission standards).
However, in the US cars tend to be bigger, heavier and have larger engines, all of which means more fuel burned per mile. In places like Japan and Europe small cars are much more popular. One reason for this is that petrol is several times more expensive in Europe (particularly Britain, where 80% of the cost of a litre is tax and duty) than it is in the States, so buying a more efficient car becomes much more financially worthwhile.
Re:Two graphs to consider. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, I always view these chicken little reports as a communist "Lets screw the US!" ploy - reguardless of the facts about Mexico pollution (including continued production of ozone depleting freon there, while it's controlled in the US), Brazilian slash and burn, Iraqui oil well fires, Indonesian fires, etc etc etc. US industry is much cleaner than any developing 3rd world or former Soviet industry, yet it's always the US they want to screw over! Lets see Russia or Japan sign the Kyoto accords, don't hand us the hari kiri knife.
Re:Two graphs to consider. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sadly, correlating any two lines may be amusing for agitprop, but hardly forms the basis of any predictive ability. A second example is the stock market boom of 1996-2000 -- people just followed the trend blindly because it looked like a trend. Whoops!
I also take issue with "betting the world." Firstly, it isn't yours to bet with. Its mine too, so please don't make my choices for me. Secondly, even if the global climate changed, it is hard to believe life on earth would be wiped out. Good grief, we can't even get rid of cockroaches, and the doomsayers get all in a tizzy about their favorite collections of spores, molds, and fungus (thanks, Egon).
Re:The earth changes.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The rate of average temperature change is the measurement of acceleration or deceleration. Every time these changes come about the circumstances are different, thus the acceleration is different.
As the article also stated, the increase in average temperature of Antartica is only in the coastal region, the inland average temperature is actually decreasing.
um... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the iceberg articles said the change was 2.5 degrees.
Re:I wouldn't tak eGreenpeace's word for it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah. A wonderful story of the triumph of show business environmentalism over rational thought. A search for Brent Spar on google will give the details.
Brent Spar was an oil storage platform in the North Sea used, in the early days of the development of the North Sea fields, for storage of oil before loading into tankers and shipping. It had been phased out by pipelines and was due to be decommisioned. After 3 years of consultation with interested parties (including environmental groups) it was decided to dump it in a deep ocean trench. The reasons were: occupational risk in dismantling it on land; technical difficulty; expense; and risk of contamination.
Enter Greenpeace. They climbed aboard and, according to thier scientific tests, the rig was riddled with heavy metals, oils (5,500 tonnes was the figure mentioned), PCBs, radioactive materials, and would be an act of extreme irresponsibility to dump it at sea.
The stage was set, and the drama unfolded. Greenpeace occupied the rig. Shell tried to get them off, petrol stations in Europe were firebombed and shot at, boycotts were started. In all, there was a huge media frenzy: David and Golith; a huge faceless bureacracy (and oil company at that) versus people who are trying to save the earth.
Shell decided to abort the sinking, and the rig was towed to a deep water fjord in Norway to await an alternative. Round 1 to Greenpeace.
Round 2 was conducted by a Norwegian Consultancy, who actually did a very detailed inventory of the rig. They published figures that agreed with the Shell figures, and were completely at odds with the Greenpeace figues (the actual ammount of oil, for example, was 50 tonnes). The only conclusions were that Greenpeace were either lying, or hopelessly incompetent. This was not so much a defeat for Greenpeace as a catastrophy. Their role was as a scientifically based environmental pressure group. Their main asset was a good relationship with the media, which they harmed greatly during the Brent Spar campaign.
Now, Greenpeace is certainly seen as a more fringe, hardcore organisation, and I think that it all traced directly from that campaign. They may have won a victory with Brent Spar, but it has turned out to be a Pyrric victory.
Well duh global warming is happening... (ice age) (Score:2, Interesting)
Scientists have predicted that the earth will continue to warm up for the next 300 or so years. And there's not much we can do about it. And lets face it, the earth's climate is about as stable as an interview with Robin Williams. It's been ever changing and will continue to be ever changing regardless of the numbers that we generate.
Remember, humans didn't cause the global warming that cleared up the glaciation that was as far south as the south western US.
Re:Oh my goodness no! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Two graphs to consider. (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, suppose the warming averts another ice age. Do we WANT an ice age? At what point will the warming be dangerous? Hard to say given that the middle ages were warmer than we are now. (The recent trend prior to the middle of this century was a long-term gradual cooling trend.)
While we don't want to bet the world, it is far from clear that a 1 degree C increase in average temperature IS betting the world. It isn't even clear that the world is a worse place 1 degree C warmer than what we have now.
(Please note, re Antarctica -- polar ice is still melting from the last ice age. Unless we get much closer to ice age temperatures, it will keep melting, only the speed of melting is in question.)
Re:Greenhouse Gasses (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if we just count the amount of uranium that it takes to run the curren about 500 reactors in the world, we only have enough uranium to run them for 40-60 years. And lets not forget that no one in the world has a really good plan on what to do with the radioctive restproducts from nuclear powerplants.
We most likely have to switch to renewable energy sources. And the sun provides us with a lot of energy everyday. We only need to figure out a good enough way to extrac it and store it.
Re:The earth changes.. (Score:3, Interesting)
according to this page [noaa.gov] up to 6.0 x 10^14 Watts/day of energy. any idea how that stacks up to the hiroshima nuke?
Disaster???? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is this a disaster? The shelf displaced the same amount of water when it was solid that it does now melted because it was floating in the first place. Considering that the interior recessions have appeared to stop, the dire predictions of a sealevel rise are totally unsubstantiated.
Re:If global warming was real... (Score:2, Interesting)
The economies of these countries are in a different phase than ours. They're in the transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. This means much of their development is in the form of low-tech basic industries such as steel production, textiles, raw materials, etc. These also happen to be the most polluting type of industries. However, they are well suited in poorer countries that need large, low-tech, established industries that can employ vast numbers of relatively less educated workers.
In contrast, the U.S., and Europe have moved into a postindustrial economy where much of the GDP is generated by service industries and by a highly educated workforce engaged in "information" industries (or whatever the buzzword is these days :-).
Given that, it's easier for the first world to impose higher environmental restrictions on their economies since they are less dependent on the high pollution ones and since they are wealthier than the others. But it's harder to ask developing countries to do the same.
Furthermore, there's also a sense of fairness at play. Keep in mind that the U.S. and Europe went through an industrial age as well (the time of the so called Robber barons and monopolies and Carnegie and Rockefeller) before being able to generate the wealth that allowed them to transition to a service economy. And they did this before there were any environmental controls. To ask the third world to suddenly accept tight restrictions whereas the rest of the world never had to before is a little disingenous. Of course one could argue that we didn't know about these things before and regardless of what happened in the past, it's up to all of us to correct it now. While that's true, I think some concession for the different development stages of different economies is not a bad thing.
What's more, it's highly ironic that "fuel efficient" american SUV's are being compared to "black smoke belching" thirld world cars seeing as how the average third world resident uses non-polluting walking as his primary mode of transportation :-) But seriously, what's more unfair? Asking Americans to give up their SUV's for slightly less gargantuan cars, or asking an Indian to give up the wood he uses to cook food for his family because it burns dirty?
Re:Greenhouse Gasses (Score:3, Interesting)
The sky is falling the sky is falling (Score:3, Interesting)
'However, the picture generally in Antarctica is a complicated one with temperatures in the interior actually falling over the same period. There is also some evidence that the retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, on the other side of the peninsula to the Larsen B shelf, has halted'
Add to that there is this gem 'Scientists hope the data gathered on site will help them determine when such an event last happened and which ice shelves are threatened in future.'
Oh, so we don't even know if this is a cyclical event and if so how often it happens..... From 1947 to the late 1960's or early 1970's (depending on who you believe) there was a global cooling. At that time some scientists were predicting another ice age.
This is a serious event that warrants study and careful scientific examiniation. It does not warrant people running about screaming at the top of your lungs "The sky is falling".
Doing so just makes people disbelieve you when/if you do have the hard evidence to back up your claims.
Mars is warming too. (Score:2, Interesting)
I would agree that we need to cut pollution where ever possible. Fuel cells anyone. But to blame the current global changes on anything but solar cycles is just plain silly.
Nothing to see here. Move along....
What a bunch of Krunk! (Score:1, Interesting)
This dude wants us to believe he's an expert because he's been a Greenpeace nut for 10 years. Some people have been in asylums for 10 years, that doesn't make them experts on much more than pudding.
Finally...who cares?! This story is such krunk. It's a prime example of the crap that makes me wonder why I bother with Slashdot. I hate browsing, so I prefer to visit a few bookmarked places...maybe time to bookmark something decent. Maybe this [washington.edu] will be place I go. "news" for nerds??
My favorite George Carlin line... (Score:3, Interesting)
And it's true! The earth has been and WILL around for much longer than us, and it's completely arrogant of the human race to think that we can do anything about it. Our pollution isn't ruining the earth, it's ruining human life. Once we poison ourselves to death, Mother Earth will take over and heal whatever superficial wounds we've inflicted and create life again...this time maybe lifeforms with a little more intelligence...
Save the earth, hell. We have to be concerned about saving OURSELVES!
Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, any reputable scientist in the field of meteorology or climatology will tell you that it's hard to pin down where climate changes come from. In fact, it's a working hypothesis RIGHT NOW that the increase in temperature right now is a return to a more natural state of the planet. You have to remember that the dinosaurs lived for hundreds of millions of years in a climate that was thought to be tropical or sub-tropical at least as far north as mid-Alberta, Canada. Nothing has quite been the same since the K-T impact, and there's no hard evidence that our current climate is anything but entirely anomalous. It's very possible that we're RETURNING to a stable climate as opposed to living in one.
Re:Greenhouse Gasses (Score:2, Interesting)
Radioactive waste may not be a problem, actually. Laser induced fission [aip.org].
Essentially it means that radioactive waste can be recycled. Bombarding it with laser induced neutrons can force it to fizz until it is no longer radioactive, while hopefully still generating more energy than the laser costs to run. A second benefit is that nuclear plants no longer need to maintain critical mass. Turn on the laser, and watch the nuclear reaction go, turn off the laser, and see it stop!
Re:Oh my goodness no! (Score:2, Interesting)
If you have an urgent problem then it often makes sense to make an immediate decision and hope that the unknown consequences are better than the known disaster. If your house is on fire, then jumping out the window and risking serious injury makes sense. But if your house has a leaky roof then jumping out the window is not a rational reaction; the solution to the problem isn't appropriate and doesn't warrant the severe consequences. When every environmental problem these days is posed as being an imminent planet-threatening disaster then it becomes very difficult to rationally weigh what we need to do and how quickly it needs to be done.
Even the most recalcitrant of industries have begun to realize that they have to clean up their mess, it's just a matter of how to do it without bankrupting themselves and/or putting huge numbers of people out of work. Environmentalists need to take a more pragmatic approach and stop preaching continual doom and hellfire before they lose what credibility they have left.
Self Serving Agendas, and Large Chunks of Ice (Score:2, Interesting)
The Sacremento Bee did a five part report on the environmental movement back in April, 2001, called Environment, Inc. [sacbee.com] The Bee notes that "Five other major groups -- including household names such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club -- spend so much on fund raising, membership and overhead they don't meet standards set by philanthropic watchdog groups."
I'm too ignorant to judge claims made by most environmental groups, including Greenpeace. They may be right. But the implication that their motives are above reproach is laughable.
Junk Science reported big chunks of ice back in October 1998 [junkscience.com]:
Large icebergs not new
Submitted by Paul Jensen
On October 16, it was reported that an iceberg the size of Delaware broke free from Antarctica. Of course, this was attributed to global warming. [washingtonpost.com]
For a little perspective, we go to page 748 of the 1996 edition of The American Navigator, the prestigious Naval text updated continuously since 1799 (sometimes referred to as "The Bowditch."
The text reads "In 1854 and 1855, several ships in the South Atlantic reported a crescent-shaped iceberg with one horn 40 miles long, the other 60 miles long, and with an embayment 40 miles wide between the tips. In 1927 a berg 100 miles long, 100 miles wide, and 130 feet high above the water was reported. The largest iceberg ever reported was sighted in 1956 by the USS Glacier, a U. S. Navy icebreaker, about 150 miles west of Scott Island. This berg was 60 miles wide and 208 miles long, more than twice the size of Connecticut. Icebergs ten miles or more in length have been seen on many occasions in the Antarctic."
Notice that this last iceberg was more than 4 times bigger than that little "ice cube" noted in the Washington Post story. And by some miracle, the world did not come to an end after the discovery of this giant.
So last week's iceberg was not so extraordinary -- except that it was perhaps the first linked to the dreaded global warming.
(Also at http://www.sepp.org/weekwas/1998/oct19_25.html and http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/archives/environmen
The right-wing publication Scientific American, in an article about rising ocean levels in the August 1998 issue [sciam.com], noted that there is "some evidence that the West Antarctic ice sheet may, in fact, have melted at least once before. Between about 110,000 and 130,000 years ago, when the last shared ancestors of all humans probably fanned out of Africa into Asia and Europe, Earth experienced a climatic history strikingly similar to what has transpired in the past 20,000 years, warming abruptly from the chill of a great ice age."
(This is by the same author who wrote the cover story of the March 1997 issue [sciam.com] about rising sea levels. That article is not available online, and I don't have it here at work with me).
Re:Let me lay it on the table (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh yeah, basic science consists of EMPIRICAL evidence, not "conclusions based on theory", so there goes that one into the crapper.
These environment loving freaks really need to take the first shuttle off of the earth and live elsewhere, since mankind is the root of all evil when it comes to "mother earth" in their eyes (except for them of course). I hate to break it to you, but Mount Pinatubo farted out more gas in one shot than us humans did in 100 years. Where was the public outcry against that?? How DARE that volcano put all those "greenhouse" gases into the air??? Why that will destroy the ozone and melt the polar caps!!
Definition of an ozone party: on earth day each year, go outside with a bunch of friends and a few cases of "deadly" aerosol cans and spray away! Great fun for the whole family!!