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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.'"
With all of these benefits who cares about preventing damage to our environment?!</sarcasm>
that global warming would lead to new oil discoveries.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
There are two other effects to consider however - you alluded to the ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica, which would have a much greater effect on sea level if they should melt or even just flow into the ocean faster than they do now. With the polar ice cap gone, the Greenland ice cap would probably move faster and possibly even disintegrate.
The other effect is that once you get above about 4 degrees C, water starts expanding again. So if the entire volume of ocean water becomes warmer on average, you may well get a rise in sea level even without the Greenland or Antarctic ice caps melting (the quibble is whether enough of the water will remain around 4 degrees C where it reaches minimum volume per unit mass - this is going to be difficult to compute because the effect of a melting polar ice cap on ocean currents is hard to predict accurately).
Look at the recent flood in America.. now think of that flood was in one of the African slums where they can hardly eat.
Kind of like that tsunami that hit indonesia a little while back. Tons of devastation, killed over 100,000 people. Wikipedia reports only 1200 deaths from hurricane katrina. Only 2000 US soldiers have died in Iraq. 200,000 Allied soldiers died during the battle of normandy. Americans don't even remember what real devastation is, and some have never ever experienced it. At least not first hand. They hear about it on the news, but it's hard to relate to pictures on a tv screen. Maybe this is why so many people forget how vulnerable we are. Because in the last 50 years, there has been very little in terms of real devastation.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
No, we've got Euro politicians and businesses who accepted Kyoto - without "ruining their economies". Now they're ahead of us in conservation and development of alternative energy. Although we Americans are whining (well, *you* are, anyway) while we drag everyone else down with our pollution.
The worst American politician whiner was Bush, who whined "we'll give you something better than Kyoto" when he rejected it. Just another lie from Bush, who has given us nothing but tax rebates on SUVs that did nothing but further break the environment, and even break the American carmakers' future sales, driving them to the brink of bankruptcy.
Just to complete your Bushwacko rhetoric, your "aren't worth the paper they're printed on" was Bush's comment about our Social Security "lockbox" that he looted, referring to the debt he owes us to finance his $3TRILLION annual budget, his $45TRILLION in committed debt. When, in fact, those Social Security debts, backed by US Treasury Bills, are by law the highest priority debt obligation of the US government. Bush is talking about defaulting on America's $TRILLIONS in debt, which would do for our country what he's been doing to the economy and the environment. And you're happily parroting his insane talking points. You really deserve the ecocaust you're courting. But I don't.
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make install -not war
If we took a leadership role, rather than being pulled by the ear, in developing renewables and conservation technology, then when China finally decides to face up to the music, because the enviro-riots they already have happening there every month get way out of control, we will have an export industry to sell them products to get their crap cleaned up. Might take a good chunk out of that huge trade deficit we owe them.
Unfortunately doing so would require both business and political leaders with vision. Something we lack bigtime.
Someone had to do it.
Have little effect on sea level. It is floating already. However, if the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps melt, there will be a serious increase in mean sea level. Greenland meltdown is estimated to yield about 7m (circa 23 feet) rise in sea level according to this. Should the Antarctic cap go as well, sea level would increase over 70m (about 230ft) according to this source. Seven meters puts me on the beach, 70+ meters puts me in the position of having to breath water, which I've yet to succeed at..
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
>>> cruise destinations in the pacific get flooded
>
> So relax, the Pacific islands aren't going anywhere.
But anything built on them or growing on them will be going away if/when they get flooded.
The islands may indeed catch up to even something like a 5m rise in sea level, but even if it's in such a ridiculously short time as 100 years, that means (a) they cease to exist as islands for the near future, (b) they're scoured of all terrestrial life, and (c) all buildings and equipment on the islands are destroyed.
In other words, the islands are gone, at least as far as current human use of them is concerned. Witness what 5m of flooding did to New Orleans in just 3 weeks.
> Why do people discard rational thought when discussing the Kyoto treaty?
A fine question indeed.
"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 ... "
"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."
Please explain to me this contradiction. Or are you saying that there was 95 Republicans in the Senate and 5 Democrats?
The more you know, the less you understand.
But to my understanding (and I may be wrong), we put out a lot less pollution than China or India.
Hmm, perhaps you knew you were wrong in the first place, but besided to say it anyway? Well, yes you are wrong. The US is by far the worst polluter (OVERALL, not Per Capita) in the world. The difference is that they don't pollute into the heart of their urban areas, so it's not visible to the average citizen. Some statistics to back this up:
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Energy consumption
The central argument of your whole post is destroyed when you discover that your basic premise is wrong. Everyone in the world agrees that there is man-made global warming. Only in the US has the propaganda been strong enough to still sustain a debate, no matter how senseless. EVEN BUSH finally admitted that humans are causing global warming. Perhaps you need to admit to yourself that it's possible you could be wrong, and that the attachment to your lifestyle and your nationalism is what makes you so apprehensive of seeing the truth.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie