Slashdot Mirror
Countries Plan Land Rush in Warming Arctic
Noel Bourke sent in a pointer to this story about northern nations maneuvering to claim land in the Arctic. Fossil fuels, shipping lanes, and fishing are among the economic interests at stake, in an opportunity opened up by the melting Arctic ice.
It's an interesting article, no doubt, but why do I have a feeling the discussions will degenerate into political debates about global warming? It's kind of sad we can't just discuss things rationally anymore.
Of course, then you realize Slashdot's editors have to know that these subjects cause political debates. Then you understand--it's all about page hits for OSTG. Why do you think we got a Mozilla vulnerability and Linux root exploit article today? Each article is full of people arguing.
I believe the editors post flamebait articles intended to incite arguments because it generates page hits. Hence the endless cycle SCO, RIAA, Microsoft, Linus-did-this-today, SCO, RIAA, Microsoft, Mozilla, etc.
There are waaaay bigger problems than that. Sorry, but environmentalism aside, we will have some serious human issues if the ice packs that are currently *not* floating begin to melt. Sea levels rising more than a bit will cause some pretty nasty issues.
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
...says a newspaper based in New Zealand. :-)
The world is melting and all we wanna do is milk it for some bucks. Whoever designed the human brain was obviously using windows, cuz smething is seriously screwed up there. One step closer to Capitalism eating itself, friends.
Sometimes I wonder if I really am the only one that gives a shit.
Am I the only one that mourns for all the lost (and soon to be lost) species?
So you give away sovereign Canadian soil to compensate for global polution? Yeah that's fair. How about we give away land masses based on C02 emissions? That way 25% of the US will be up for auction.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Where humans have lived, just about every other life form except the rat and roach have suffered. Do you propose we start a policy of zero population grown and euthanasia for those of us still living? Everything evolves including the world, and one day our world will die.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Greenland looks pretty damn big on my globe. And it's only a mile or so deep in ice.
Melting that would cause a sea-level rise.
Maybe if you had read the parents post you would have realized he was talking about icepacks that AREN'T floating.
You're right though, most of the ice in the arctic is already floating. The antarctic glaciers are the ones we should worry about as far as sea level is concerned.
AccountKiller
Many people today only understand these nebulous dual concepts of negative and positive. You can imagine a little scorechart in their heads, and them tallying whatever people say to them, whatever they read, into either one of those lists.
If you were to say to an American nationalist example of one of these people that "America is a great nation!" their positive side lights up. If you were to say "America" has issues with their large prison population. Their negative side lights up and a tick goes into the negative column for you.
Depending on how strongly they feel, going above a threshold ratio of negative ticks to positive ticks will make them hate you. And depending on how energetic they are, they will lash out with just whatever negative comments come to mind. Doesn't matter what, because, hey, who cares what people are actually saying, it just matters that you give negativity back to counter "negativity." All that matters are these general concepts of negative and positive. Love and hate. Good and evil if you will. Always easy symbolism, always the most banal ideas. Thought of anything in between these two concepts is just "self-defeating," "moral relativism," "nihilism," whatever word they latched onto that some "really smart and witty" Coulter-type character said. Criticism is always interpreted as hate, and so emotionally abusive attacks are always returned. Support is always interpreted as love, and so the most fellatio-like praises are always given back.
This almost definitely scores me a negative tick on their scorechart. And if this is all they know of me, they now hate me.
Let's face it - no matter where humanity goes, the environment will suffer. (Nor does this apply solely to humans, in fact - wherever any species enters an established ecosystem, the existing inhabitants of that ecosystem will suffer. It's simply that humans are better able to compete and thrive in new environments than any other species). The best solution to protect the environment would, in fact, be to commit mass genocide against the human race. Hence, simply arguing that humans will damage the arctic environment is not a particularly strong argument - you could use the same method to argue that human habitation of the European continent harms the environment, and thus human habitation in that region must cease.
Care to explain that dichotomy to me?
Because the fact that your "protection of marriage" laws do nothing to lower the existing divorce rate or prevent Britney-Spears-36-hour-Hollywood-marriages, means you aren't really protecting marriage, you're just hating homosexuals. That and the fact that if your gay neighbors get married, its as much your business as, and as relevant to your life, as if they get tatoos on their butts.
So yes, you are a hateful homophobe. Duh.
"Watch for the US military to grab a role in "policing the sealanes" across the new arctic circle routes."
Nevermind the fact that the US has one of the longest Arctic shorelines in the world (behind Russia, Canada and Denmark/Greenland).
Nevermind that the US has been one of the most active in the Arctic Ocean in recent decades (thanks to nuclear submarines and the various ice stations they support).
Nevermind that nobody else seems to have any interest in taking over the US' role in "policing the sealanes" in the other four oceans, even though I'm sure there are members of Congress that would like to cut funding from, say, far-off Diego Garcia and move it to their own pork barrel projects (neither India nor Australia seem all that keen on picking up any slack).
Oh no, this is a brand new evil Yankee imperialist power-grab..
"Watch for the Russian military to challenge that role, backed by nuclear weapons. "
How is that a change? That's what the Russian/Soviet Navy has been since they started building their own nuclear submarines. In order to try to save some of their resources, Soviet policy had been to abandon the surface fleet to throw that money at submarines and land and air forces.
"Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland to form a competing coalition"
Why would Canada and Norway want to invite Sweden and Finland? Other than the occasional small rock with a flag flying over it, neither of those two countries actually have any Arctic shoreline. Baltic Sea != Arctic Ocean.
Glacial rebound over the course of a few millenia, sure. Continents "bobbing up" (you know, like my rubber duckie in the tub), rendering the melting of continental ice shelves irrelevant...hogwash.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You're forgetting that big hunk of glacier sitting on greenland.
.
Look, climates change. 10,000 years ago, Europe and the Eastern United States were "Arctic".
Ecoregions change, they've always changed. The Arctic will not "suffer" it will simply change, like climates and regions always have.
There is no dichotomy. An American nationalist that treats any criticism or discussion as hate is wrong, and a homosexual that treats any criticism or discussion as hate is wrong. The error of the nationalist must be treated more seriously because the stakes are much greater.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
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Let's face it - no matter where humanity goes, the environment will suffer.
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No, the environment will CHANGE. Suffer is simply you expressing your opinion, and a rather silly opinion at that, since it assumes the existing environment is automatically the best possible environment, and that all environments are, by default, static and unchanging.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Unfortunately that same level of debate seems to apply to issues in the Palestine region ... if you criticise one party, you're a holocaust-denier, if you criticise the other, you're condoning ethnic cleansing.
This unfortunately then dissuades the majority from intelligent discourse.