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Capitalizing on Melting Polar Ice
efuzzyone writes "As an affect of global warming, the polar ice caps seem to be slowly receding, what do you do? The NYT reports it is a gold rush, 'the Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars.' Also, 'polar thaw is also starting to unlock other treasures: lucrative shipping routes, perhaps even the storied Northwest Passage; new cruise ship destinations; and important commercial fisheries.'"
"As an affect of global warming"?
And the science is not very solid either.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Sacramento is in the middle of a valley with a big river (coincidentally *also* called Sacramento) running through it. If anything, Sacramento will be on the bottom of the California Archipelago's Great Central Sea.
the coin :)
http://www.globalwarming.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4290340. stm
~jennifer.k~
People, try to think back to your high school physics.
Polar ice melting will NOT change sea level anywhere. No beachfront property in Sacramento. No flooding of tiny Pacific islands.
The ice is currently Floating in WATER! And since ice is lighter than water, when they melt, they will take up less space before in the ocean. Some of the Pacific islands may get bigger (someone may even notice it).
Melting in the Antarctic or on Greenland is different, since those are ice on land right now. But melting of ice in Arctic should make little difference in Sea Level.
Affect and effect are both nouns and both verbs, but the one you wanted was "effect".
:)
An effect (n) is something that happens as a result of some action.
To effect (v) a change is to cause a change to occur.
A affect (n) is a feeling or emotion you feel.
To affect (v) something is to change it through your actions. To affect something is to effect a change in it.
Being the intelligent people we are, with great precision in our computer languages, let's not ride the wave of many technologists who believe they are too good to condescend to write English properly. Strive to do well in all things.
Canada considers the Artic to be an internal water way and as such maintains dominion over all shipping in the area. The U.S., no surprise, considers the area to be international waters. As the ice recedes and the fabled Northwest Passage becomes a reality look for increased tension between the United States and Canada over control of shipping in the area (like we need more tension than already exists).
Unfortunately, Canada will probably roll over and let the U.S. have it's way on the sovereignty issue as we've done in the past when the U.S. ice breaker Polar Sea transited the Northwest Passage in 1985.
That's nothing. The headline says "affect". Obviously it should be "effect".
Dumb humans.
Still, global warming is not a plus for me. The ski season is getting shorter :-(
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Not to mention the rising waters flooding pacific islands. Good trade off, cruise destinations in the pacific get flooded, and cruise destinations in the polar region open up.
Ever wonder why many Pacific islands are at sea level? Most are volcanoes eroded to sea level. They become atolls through processes of erosion and a buildup of calcium carbonate that form a ring around the eroded ediface. As sea level rises deposition by coral will equalize with rising sea level. Indeed, flooding by major storms is the *only* mechanism where new material is deposited above sea level at all! This is not new. It has going for the last 12000 years since the end of the last ice age as sea level has risen several meters. So relax, the Pacific islands aren't going anywhere. Why do people discard rational thought when discussing the Kyoto treaty?
an ill wind that blows no good
Here's the thing, if there's more water, there's more weight on the crust, which will subside a bit. Cutting a long story short and without explaining the ins and outs of crustal isostasy, if your house, water source and farmland is above 75m in elevation, you'll be alright.
Otherwise, to quote Tool's very appropriate song Aenima, learn to swim.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
It was President Clinton who first refused to agree to the Kyoto Protocols. Another fact, left out so you could take a cheap shot on the President. Oh well.
The New York Times
October 10, 2005
The Big Melt
As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, STEVEN LEE MYERS, ANDREW C. REVKIN and SIMON ROMERO
CHURCHILL, Manitoba - It seems harsh to say that bad news for polar bears is good for Pat Broe. Mr. Broe, a Denver entrepreneur, is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions of global warming.
Still, the newest study of the Arctic ice cap - finding that it faded this summer to its smallest size ever recorded - is beginning to make Mr. Broe look like a visionary for buying this derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997. Especially at the price he paid: about $7.
By Mr. Broe's calculations, Churchill could bring in as much as $100 million a year as a port on Arctic shipping lanes shorter by thousands of miles than routes to the south, and traffic would only increase as the retreat of ice in the region clears the way for a longer shipping season.
With major companies and nations large and small adopting similar logic, the Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the frigid Barents Sea, lured by undersea oil and gas fields and emboldened by advances in technology. But now, as thinning ice stands to simplify construction of drilling rigs, exploration is likely to move even farther north.
Last year, scientists found tantalizing hints of oil in seabed samples just 200 miles from the North Pole. All told, one quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas resources lies in the Arctic, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The polar thaw is also starting to unlock other treasures: lucrative shipping routes, perhaps even the storied Northwest Passage; new cruise ship destinations; and important commercial fisheries.
"It's the positive side of global warming, if there is a positive side," said Ron Lemieux, the transportation minister of Manitoba, whose provincial government is investing millions in Churchill.
If the melting continues, as many Arctic experts expect, the mass of floating ice that has crowned the planet for millions of years may largely disappear for entire summers this century. Instead of the white wilderness that killed explorers and defeated navigators for centuries, the world would have a blue pole on top, a seasonally open sea nearly five times the size of the Mediterranean.
But if the Arctic is no longer a frozen backyard, the fences matter. For now it is not clear where those fences are. Under a treaty called the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, territory is determined by how far a nation's continental shelf extends into the sea. Under the treaty, countries have limited time after ratifying it to map the sea floor and make claims.
In 2001, Russia made the first move, staking out virtually half the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole. But after challenges by other nations, including the United States, Russia sought to bolster its claim by sending a research ship north to gather more geographical data. On Aug. 29, it reached the pole without the help of an icebreaker - the first ship ever to do so.
The United States, an Arctic nation itself because of Alaska, could also try to expand its territory. But several senators who oppose any possible infringement on American sovereignty have repeatedly blocked ratification of the treaty.
Indeed, not everyone agrees that warming of the Arctic merits concern. No one knows what share of the recent thawing can be attributed to natural cycles and how much to heat-trapping pollution linked to recent global warming, and some scientists and government officials, particularly in Russia, are dismissive of assertions that a permanent change is at hand.
"We are
A.C. you make an excellent point!
I find humor in the root-level comment, but there is a deeper underlying issue with the Kyoto agreement that doesn't settle well with my view on it.
Sure the U.S. pollutes a great deal; we also use something like 1/6 of all of the world's resources. But to my understanding (and I may be wrong), we put out a lot less pollution than China or India.
I have family that has recently travelled to this part of the world, and they've had a hard time adjusting to the pollution that exists in that part of the world... Smog is everywhere I'm told.
Yeah, the U.S. can do a lot to clean up its own act, but the rest of the world has a long way to go, too.
Now, why should the U.S. foot the bill for the rest of the world?
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
Especially take note of this chart
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Actually, the Kyoto treaty was unanimously rejected by the senate. See Senate Resolution 98 (1997).
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Perhaps you can explain to us how the arctic ice, floating in the ocean, could raise the sea level by melting?
The floating ice won't. It's the ice that's deposited on land (Antarctica, Greenland, Northern Canada, etc.) that will.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's getting too late. I need to get to bed, since I obviously can't read. although I should point everyone towards this site which points out some battles that cause many more deaths than normandy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pressrelease.c fm?ContentID=499
It's easy to overlook 'facts' when they are in reality fiction.
In reality Clinton's administration negotiated, supported, and he personally eventually signed the Kyoto protocol.
"Former President Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, negotiated the treaty for the United States and had a major role in its final form."
According to Wikipedia:
"On June 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was to be negotiated, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Aware of the Senate's view of the protocol, the Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol for ratification."
The criticism is that Bush doesn't support the Kyoto protocol. If Clinton commanded a congress with a dominant Democrat majority, as Bush commands a Republican majority, the Kyoto protocol would have passed under his administration.
His administration undeniably supported the Kyoto protocol.
It seems very strange for me to hear conservatives, which I'm sure you undeniably are, cry foul at simply criticizing the policy of the Bush administration. The only way you could find these criticisms innately negative, is if you agreed that the policy they criticize is innately negative. Clinton suffered an array of actual 'shots' that had nothing to do with his policy, by 24 hour cable news networks, and independent councils; working full time to dig up information on fabricated crimes he supposedly committed (yet predictably never yielded anything substantial).
Vehicular pollution from a city like Shanghai or Mumbai (the smog that made your travelling family uneasy) should not be equated with industrial pollution of a country like USA.
The US contains 4% of the world's population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison, Britain emits 3% - about the same as India which has 15 times as many people.
Tat Tvam Asi
No offense, but you cleary have incomplete knowledge about international maritime law. What you are missing is a key piece of info known as innocent passage(UN Convention on Law of the Sea, Articles 17-28). This right allows ships to pass through territorial waters for the purpose of accessing international waters. It is even extended to warships, provided they take additional steps to appear more "neutral" (for instance, aircraft carriers may not launch/recover aircraft and submarines must be surfaced). This right is exercised on a daily basis through the straits of Hormuz, and Bosporus, amoung others.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Oh, thats a great argument.... India is like three times your size and how much less money? And China, do you think China is going to do anything in the worlds interest? I think China's style is usually a little more Chinese centric. How can you say you are better then these people, but then compare yourself to them?
But any ways you are wrong, most emissions, past and present, have been emmited by long established industrialized nations.
Kyoto is not asking the U.S. to clean up the rest of the world. It is a treaty among mainly wealthier countries to risk taking a controlled blow to our economies and try to save what we have left of our dying planet.
Since Chrichton isn't a scientist I don't think we should mix his opinion piece with the work of scientists...n ews_lz1e21benford.htmlh ronicle/archive/2005/02/16/EDG49BAVBT1.DTL
Here's a little light reading for perspective:
http://info-pollution.com/mc.htm
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050121/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c
etc..
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
Total carbon dioxide emission 2002 (million tonnes):
Source: http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/environment/energy_im pact/seib2005ch5a.pdf