Baked Alaska

mithras the prophet writes "Global warming stories usually focus on the hotbutton politics, scientific debate, or latest disturbing anecdote of receding ice. A very interesting New York Times story takes a different tack, highlighting the reality of climate change for small-town Alaskans. Whatever the cause, temperatures in Alaska have risen by seven degrees in the last 30 years. This has very real consequences for ordinary citizens; the rest of us would do well to consider their stories. Lucy Eningowuk and her 600 fellow citizens of Shishmaref will vote next week whether to move their town to the mainland. Despite community efforts, thawing of permafrost and wave action from melting ice has eroded away most of the land the village is built on. Residents of Barrow (warning: MIDI-enabled page), on the North Shore, are swatting mosquitos for the first time in their lives. In an ironic twist, managers of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline are putting in supports to keep the pipeline from breaking as permafrost thaws."

Comments

Re:I live in Alberta

[JohnFred]

"-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa [mensa.org] member. I have no toleranse for stupidity. "

And I have no tolerance for bad spelling.

Re:Days of denial are over.

[yasth]

Well actually it could be a cause. The Ice cream is being kept colder then outside air. Since no insulatoin system is perfect (and besides milk is not frozen when it comes from the cow) this take energy to cool, and mainten the temperature. Since the heat has to go somewhere it goes from the inside of the freezer to the outside. Since no system is 100% efficent it is actually introduces more heat into the outside environment then would be expected(i.e. heat that can't be fixed by lettng the icecream cool the air). So in the end you get more heat in the environment. All this is completely ignoring the fact that you are probably adding heat to the environment when you (inefficently) make the power.

So yes ice cream is a cause for warming at least on the local level, and thus in time the global level. Hmm interesting task would be to figure out how much. Oh yeah notice that all this was done without talk of emisions of any kind.

Re:I live in Alberta

[pommiekiwifruit]

And I have no tolerance for bad spelling

And who says slashdot readers think irony is something other people do to their shirts?