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Icebergs Sailing Past New Zealand

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the kiwi-smoothie dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A fleet of icebergs is heading north from Antarctica and at least one has reached New Zealand, an event that has not occurred in decades. While not necessarily a consequence of global warming it is very cool!"

10 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. $10 Million, $10 Million, $10 Million dollars by Salvance · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does this remind anyone else of the scene in Brewster's Millions where the guy sells Richard Pryor on a concept to intall a tugboat inside an iceburg and sail it to desert countries in Africa? Maybe nows the time to start looking into this ...

    I know, I'm completely off topic ... but this "news" story didn't really warrant much real discussion ... iceburg floats to New Zealand because of benign wind change, more news at 11

    --
    Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
  2. Re:awesome! by Loadmaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that's a great idea. Put all the Survivor people on the iceberg, set it adrift, and then wait for it and everyone on it to disappear in the ocean never to be seen nor heard from again.

    Swi

  3. Crazy weather by wiiinintendto · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I live in Sydney, and I tells you it is FREEZING cold, the weather has been insane for the last few days, with bushfires around the outer west of NSW and more cold weather further south around Melbourne. It's crazy in the space of yesterday morning with warm to hot weather it suddenly plunged us into this chilly cold, and this is in Spring.

    I think it's testament to the theories of Global Warming being accurately predicted.

    1. Re:Crazy weather by east+coast · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it's testament to the theories of Global Warming being accurately predicted.

      Three days of unseasonable weather in a single location is now proof for a theory that encompasses an entire planet's climate change that would last for (at least) centuries? Why is this modded insightful?

      I'm not discounting the theory but people who think that a minor "burp" in the environment around them is proof of something massively sinister going on is insane. How is this different from the Christians who claim that the Revelation Prophecy is coming true because of odd weather patterns?

      What the fuck has happened that real science being discarded for knee-jerk reactions is commonplace and winked at around here?

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    2. Re:Crazy weather by tonyr60 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The global warming supporters would argue that the warmer temps have caused more of the southern ice to break away and that is why the icebergs are available to approach NZ. However apparently these icebergs would have broken away 7 years ago. And in the 1930s icebergs also reached NZ. I don't see any evidence in support or against global warming in this, but I am sure those who try hard enough will find "evidence".

    3. Re:Crazy weather by east+coast · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why are you ignoring the massive amounts of data which speaks clearly of climate change?

      Once again... I said I do not discount the theory. Sorry if this little factoid bothers you but the commonly accepted version of "global warming" is still just a theory. This is what science is all about; you take a series of observations, you try to predict the outcome of a model based on these observations and you retest and see what happens. That's the basics. So far there hasn't been a truly successful model that I'm aware of that can take all the elements of "global warming" and put them together in a cohesive, proven package. (If this is new to you, this package is what is normally called a "law" in scientific circles. Laws and Theories all too often get their terms used interchangeably, which is wrong and this is also what causes some people to think that a theory is somehow proven and correct in the face of all other evidence). While I agree with some of the environmental initiatives of those who accept the global warming theory as a law I don't think we need to run into a "solution" at break-neck speeds. If anything we need more observation and we should start taking steps that make sense in other ways (reducing fossil fuels has a tremendous amount of potential as a movement from foreign oil independence to straight up environmentalism)

      Oh right, if you're in the US, the government is suppressing such results in the media, so you'll never see it.

      This is another thing I just love about The New and Improved Slashdot(tm). ACs who talk shit on the US acting as if we're somehow censored from the rest of the world. Acting as if people are just being loaded into black vans and carried off in the dead of night never to be seen again. Acting as if the US is a collective with no will of it's own. While I do not doubt that there are all sorts of higher powers that like to dicker in the field of science for their own personal profit we (the US) still have access to all the same information that someone in some other "enlightened" country has access to. Maybe some of the stories that appear in your local paper, assuming you're not an American with a hard on for bashing the current administration, don't hit the front page of my local paper but that doesn't mean I can't find this information via other channels. If you haven't happened to notice; I'm on the same internet as you. And even with all the bellyaching and boohooing I see coming from the likes of people like you I haven't seen any censorship on the internet coming from the powers that be in my country.

      My advice? Stop being a smug little asshole and realize that there is far more to the situation both in global warming and the current state of the US than what you see on "the science channel" (*cough* *cough*) and what some people rant on about on the street corners.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    4. Re:Crazy weather by 14CharUsername · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its called marketing. Of course iceburgs floating past past NZ doesn't mean much empirically, its just one point of data. But it means pictures in newspapers and a bunch of articles written.

      Based on pure scientific data its hard to argue against global warming and its cause being increased CO2 in the atmosphere. That argument is won.

      The truth is on the side of the environmentalists this time. But the Truthiness is on the side of the oil industry. If global warming is false people can continue driving their SUVs and living in the suburbs. No one wants to have to make the serious changes needed to reduce their carbon output. Its much easier to take whatever anecdotal evidence and make all the rationalisations necessary so that you can continue to feel like global warming isn't true.

      Now what do you do to convince someone who wants to believe that global warming is false? sit them down and force them to read a 500 page study on global warming and its effects? That just isn't going to work. Show them an iceburg floating past them and say "that's what global warming does", and you might get somewhere.

      It's not science. But its much more effective than pointing to a dry scientific journal everytime someone says "It was pretty cold out today... so much for global warming". Everytime they give an anecdote about how global warming isn't happening you give them two that indicate that it is. That's politics.

      It really is unfortunate that global warming is politicized. But now that it is you can't whine about the other side using your tactics against you now can you?

  4. Re:"Global warming does not exist!" by aussie_a · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There also wasn't any people. Do you want to live in world without people? No. Same way I don't want to live in a world without icebergs (most likely because it will at the very least cause hardship for the aforementioned people).

  5. Why would it? by nwbvt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would it have anything to do with global warming? Are people really under the impression that icebergs don't naturally exist and are really a product of the evil Bush administration's plan to cause global warming so they can drown the entire West coast?

    Its sort of sad when we have to clarify which stories might have to do with global warming and which don't...

    --
    Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
    1. Re:Why would it? by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Icebergs are natural, icebergs so far up north aren't.

      Actually, if you read the TFA, or know anything about icebergs - you'll realize you are full of crap. Icebergs have been sited near NZ in the past - it's a rare occurence, but it does happen. A singular reccurence of something that has happened in the recent past and repeatedly across recorded history does not constitute proof (or disproof) of anything.