Slashdot Mirror
Mountain Moisture Melting
felis_panthera writes "Yahoo! News has a Full Coverage story on how global warming is causing the ice cap atop Mt. Kilimanjaro to melt. It goes on to say that it has shrunk by 80% in the last century, and will probably be completely gone in another two decades. The ice cap is believed to have formed some eleven millenia ago. Some African rivers have already seen a decrease in volume, and it is feared that the loss of the ice cap will also cause a drop off in tourism."
So there is ice melting at the top of a mountain in Africa... proof of global warming? Uhmm...
Could there be other factors to account for such a profound localized decrease (80%??). The polar icecaps certainly don't look 80% smaller to me...
Could it have something to do with more local climatalogical factors? Increased industrialization in Africa? Loss of vegetation on that continent?
Seems like an awfully high decline, that hasn't to my knowledge been demonstrated in other places in the world.
Sorry... too skeptical to buy this one.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
in danger of being killed by its own excretion, of dying from an illness closely analogous to uraemia. Humanity will be forced to invent some sort of planetary kidney - or it will die from its own waste products."
The statement he made looks strikingly true today...Today Kilimanjaro. Tomorrow???
"Do something man. Right now."
Sorry... too skeptical to buy this one.
... what aren't you buying? There was no 'we're all going to die!!!' angle in the article - it was simply reporting a change in a single ecosystem.
Umm
Remember that the glaciers on Kilimanjaro are pretty unique - it's slap on the equator (so there's no winter/summer to allow the glaciers to grow and shrink), it's peak is 6km above sea level, where the atmospheric pressure is ~50% of sea level (how does that effect the melting point?), and the glaciers are a side effect of what happened about 10000 years ago.
Because it's a single (well, ok, actually a triple) peak, not in a mountain range, there aren't going to be any particular wierd weather patterns around it, so it's probably quite a good gauge of what's happening 6000m above us. How changes in the atmosphere up there effect us down here is, of course, the subject of heated (sorry) debate.
I actually climbed up in 1996 and was quite surprised that i didn't come across any snow at all - but you could walk right up to the base of bits of the glaciers. Still bloody cold though - especially as everyone climbs up the last bit in the night (to see dawn break from the top).
Tourism losses shouldn't be that big of a problem at all. I live in Tanzania, and even the mountains without ice caps have seasonal ice on top, which is enough for the tourists.
*Looks out the window at Mt. Meru to see if there is ice on top*
Nope, not today, but there would be if it had rained.
Most of the tourist $$$ are spent on safaris to Serengeti, Ngorogoro, etc. anyway. Kili is just a sideshow.
For everybody who's head is spinning over the loss of tourist revenue bit... This is related more to the decrease in river runoff than the loss of the icecap.
Kili is in Africa and in Africa NOTHING is as simple as it seems. Aside from global climate change, there is some local climate change going on at the foot of the mountain. Specifically, a large rainforest is being clear-cut for timber. Loss of this forest is changing local rainfall patterns--i.e. the forest isn't "catching" the airborne moisture anymore, and so either the rain isn't falling or it's falling but not being absorbed by the forest and running off. Less rain, less water in the river, and also increased sedimentation of the riverbanks. After this, obviously the tourists don't want to see a clear-cut mountain, and the reduced rain and increased silting irritates the farmers who live at the base of the mountain.
So there's a fight going on between the loggers, farmers, and tourism people. Some of the farmers actually double as tour guides on the mountain; when I was in Tanzania a couple of years ago I took a guided tour from a farmer who earned some extra income (1 US$=750 Tanzanian shillings at the time) by hauling white folk around the mountain. And loss of tourism revenue in that area is a big deal. For a town where the richest man in town is the richest because he owns a truck and carries the farmers' bananas 6 hours by road to the capital Dar es Salaam, tourism and farming interests really, really, really want to keep their income flowing. At the same time the loggers want to keep their jobs. No easy answer here.
yellowcat ^_^ ??
But global warming has been shown to be a bit of an exaggeration... studies are now finding that humans aren't contributing as much to it as we'd like to think... Ken Wilbur mentions this, I believe, in "Boomeritis", and it's covered in other texts as well... these things come and go in cycles, and we're in the middle of a warming cycle... that's not to say that I don't think that dumping ten tons of refridgerant-12 is a good idea... but global warming is largely another media exaggeration, like the dangers of travelling abroad (discussed in this /. thread - first post in thread is a bit of a troll, but there's some insightful commentary further down), or the CIA / FBI's monthly warnings of "yes sir, there's a-gonna be another o' dem terry-rist attacks soon, y'all best be prepared, jus' in case!".
My opinions may be a bit strong... but I'm open to people with insightful commentaries both for and against my viewpoints on this... I don't profess to be an ecologist... but the commentaries I've read that attribute this to a healthy, natural Earth cycle have, thus far, been far more convincing.
The other bad thing about tourists on Kilimanjaro is all the trash they leave behind.
Total bollocks. Kilimanjaro is one of the most well protected national parks in Africa. The Tanzanian government controls the number of passes that it gives out each year to avoid too many people going up, and when I climbed it I can't remember seeing a single piece of litter. As the article you reference mentioned, wood is carried up the mountain to be used in fires - in other words, not a single branch on the whole mountain is ever used as firewood.
The fact that the Tanzanian economy is heavily dependent on tourism, and that the tips the porters get for 5 days work are equivalent to a months wages there are all good things.
Now, if you want to complain about litter and garbage on Everest, go ahead, I'd support you - but Kilimanjaro (along with all the main Tanzanian tourist spots) is an example of eco-tourism at it's best.
The global warming will have a severe effect on the agriculture. This will increase the pressure to migrate to other parts of the world. This will not increase political stability nor peacefullness. It is to be remembered that big migrations around the year 400 finished off the roman empire without breaking sweat. These (too) were caused by climate changes.
Climate didn't cause the roman empire to collapse although it was a major contributing factor and a catalyst. You could argue that had those same climate changes occured at, oh, 200 A.D. the empire would've probably been fine. You bring up a good point though, only the strongest of empires/countries can survive climate change of this magnitude. The Han dynasty in China, the Kush kingdom in Africa, and the Parthian Empire all collapsed at roughly the same time as the Western roman empire did.
These changes just came at the wrong time for the Roman Empire and might come at the wrong time for us. It was years of waste and corruption, an increasingly non-roman army, weaker government,loss of food supply, inability to maintain it's borders - or indefensible borders if you prefer, and many, many other factors. A rapid debate will ensue among most historians if you mention the collapse of the Roman Empire. Climate change just seemed to be the catalyst for the final collapse - as it might be the catalyst for the collapse of western civilization (Don't call me paranoid, read the damm paper below)
For more I wrote a term paper on this very subject a year or two ago: Climate Change and the Collapse of Empires (Open Office Doc). Looks at the parthian empire, kush dynasty, and Han regime in china as well which collapsed around the same time. Not exactly the best paper I have written but it does give a good background.
Notice I said "commitment to change" and not "commitment to knee-jerk, hand-waving governance". The problem as I see it is based on two things:
1) people have forgotten the value of philosophy in resolving problems at the highest level of abstraction (ie: we need to change our ideas if we want to change the world)
and 2) our systems of governance, at all levels, and in all jurisdictions, need to be smarter. making decisions with one eye closed and blinders on can hardly lead to wise choices.
It is not any one change I want to see, but a change to the way we deal with change. A system that learns. A system that knows what "best practices" and "stakeholder representation" means. And one that is *gasp* based on ethics and transparency, as opposed to the Machiavellian hypocrisy we call government these days.
So, no, I don't want to change the status quo based on some beef of being kicked around by popular kids (which I was), but because I really think the status quo is the product of a rigid rule-based system that represents the interests of elitist and short-sighted power-mongers, be they capitalist or communist. But if four hundred at "the top" have to suffer to save four billion at "the bottom", then too bad... I was never that much into pyramids, anyhow.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Personally, I'm strongly of the opinion that both of these viewpoints are harmful. Over on the right there seems to be a lack of consideration for other very localized harm burning nasty stuff can cause. As a lifelong inhabitant of Los Angeles I've seen this first hand.
As someone married to an American Indian, who grew up on a west-coast reservation (of a different tribe - her mom was a teacher) with degree in history among her collection (and her dad was a history professor), let me tell you something about Los Angeles (that she brings up whenever it an air pollution are mentioned together B-) ).
Seems the local Indian name for the area translates to "Valley of the Smokes". The shape of the land and the wind patterns over much of the year trap airborne pollution - so badly that a single campfire would smoke it up for a day or more.
It's a testimony to US automobile technology (even if driven by legislation) that so many cars can now operate in that valley without photochemical smog being so thick that the light is blocked.
By the way: DON'T call them "Native Americans". It annoys them. (If you're born here YOU are a "Native American".) "American Indians", however, is a running "ignorant/stupid/crazy European invaders" joke: They were so dumb they thought they were in India - half a world away, Ho Ho! B-) (A poll of members of a large number of tribes showed the preference for "A. I." over "N. A." runs in the 80s-90s% range.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Time for an expedition to the other peak.
(putting a hand over one eye)
Well, that'll save a bit of time.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
This is what Nobel laureate Konrad Lorenz had to say about this way back in 1973-"Human culture, after enveloping and filling the whole globe, is in danger of being killed by its own excretion, of dying from an illness closely analogous to uraemia.
"Human Culture"? Yes, some of them will change. Some will die off or mutate, some will grow or shrink, some new ones will from. They do that from time to time - often on a scale of hundreds of years or less.
Human Beings, and extinction? Hardly. (Though the current enormous population is supported by farm, transport, and food preservation technologies - so a loss of this tech or an increase in its price, through economic collapse or regulation, means a significant die-off.)
Humans started out as a handfull of hunter-gatherers, before or during the last ice age. They expanded to inhabit essentially every bit of land area and floating ice except Antarctica BEFORE they developed industrial civilization and the scientific method. (Name another animal - other than human parasites - that managed that.)
Plains, deserts, steppes, mountains, ice caps... I doubt humanity could be wiped out by any climatic change that didn't boil or freeze ALL the water or eliminate all oxygen from the air.
The planet finally coming the rest of the way out of the last Ice Age - with the temperate zones shifting a couple hundred miles further from the equator and steaming jungles expanding beyond Brazil and central Africa - doesn't even qualify. (Heck: For raw biomass, suitably modified crops, or even CURRENT crops, it's probably a significant improvement.) And some of us would count the loss of the outer edge of certain seacoast cities to be a bonus. B-) Going back into a full Ice Age is more of a problem - though the greening of the equatorial deserts might make up for the loss of some more poleward land to glaciers.
Of course, if temperature shifts actually become a problem we can fix them directly, without screwing around with the CO2 level of the atmosphere. Just orbit a few hundred square miles of aluminized mylar, suitably located and oriented to provide a bit of shade if things are getting too hot, a bit of extra sunlight if they're getting too cold. Or whatever hack the rocket scientists come up with that's cheaper.
You want a robust space program anyhow - so you have something to spot and deflect the next incoming asteroid or comet fragment. Such an impact turning the whole planet into a broiler-oven for a day or so is the REAL threat of "global warming". THAT would once again reduce the ecosystem to plants with very robust seeds and resistance to PH variatioins and mouse-sized animals that happened to be underground at the time. (And maybe a few humans who had hung out in underground sites that didn't collapse and squirreled away a few years of supplies to last until they could grow something to eat.)
But I doubt temperature shifts (let alone the handfull of degrees that has the lefties drooling for more power and the media paniced) will be a problem for food production at all. Most of the food production of the world is now essentially an industrial operation, while the rest benefits from the tech. A few degrees of temperature change just means you change which crops - or which strains of a particular crop - you grow in a particular field. Shifts in weather patterns ditto, maybe with a change in irrigation or include the crops' water usage in the selection criteria, a few marginal plots going out of production, and new land becoming able to support crops.
Humanity will be forced to invent some sort of planetary kidney - or it will die from its own waste products."
Now that's true. But we've been doing EXACTLY THAT for quite a while now. When any given type of pollution becomes enough of a problem to bother with, we FIX it. Baby Boomers are old enough to remember Los Angeles smog before auto industry folk (including me) fixed up the engines. But that's NOTHING compared to, say, the killer fogs of London (driven by high-sulfur heating coal). Or just the indoor air of any human habitation in a cold climate before gas heat. And just think a moment about the streets of a city served only by horse- and ox-drawn vehicles. Talk about pollution...
Tech sometimes creates a new sort, or new amount, of pollution - "excretion" in Lorenz's vocabulary. But once it becomes a problem, more tech generally solves it (sometimes after quite a few years of griping by the people for whom it is a problem.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You seriously mischaractize both arguments.
The argument on the right (although not constrained to those holding right-wing views) is composed of several parts:
1) The science and evidence is far from conclusive. In fact, it is riddled with uncertainties, systematic errors, and bias.
2) Even if it is true, the best thing to do is to learn to adapt to it. The reason is that the steps required to prevent it (given the IPCC estimates) are so dramatic that they will not be implementable by real political systems. Furthermore they are so drastic that they will result in massive economic distruption. Kyoto, for example, would have such a small climate effect as to me not measurable over 100 years (see the IPCC data if you don't believe me!) Even most of its proponents accept that it would cost a lot of money (which would not go towards investment and thus would be a net loss to the world economy).
3) Attempting to predict the course of human technology and political behavior over the next 100 years is sheer folly - even harder than predicting the climate! Imagine if global warming was a big deal in 1902. I suspect little events like WW-I, WW-II, the rise of communism and the numerous unforseen technological changes would have derailed both all predictions and all international accords to prevent it.
There are, of course, some on the right whose viewpoints are as stated. The most visible example is Rush Limbaugh, whose knowledge of science is stubbornly zero, and who thus has indeed stated that mankind is too insignificant to cause such changes. But those views shouldn't be taken seriously.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Nature's report on Lonnie Thompson's work (Ohio State University) says
Seems convincing to me. Especially since it's the Andes as well
BUT are we talking decreased flow all year round or just the dry season months, when melting ice feeds the rivers?
100,000 melting ice cubes can fill a bath. 10 fill a glass
Of course, it's still there and as big as ever... it's just not newsworthy anymore.
It's the liberal's dilemma; once the scare they create has forced politicians into making policy changes, things begin to stabalize. Then five years later the conservatives point and hold it up as an example of liberal fallability.