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ICE Satellite Maps Profound Polar Thinning
xp65 writes "Researchers have used NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite to compose the most comprehensive picture of changing glaciers along the coast of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The new elevation maps show that all latitudes of the Greenland ice sheet are affected by dynamic thinning — the loss of ice due to accelerated ice flow to the ocean. The maps also show surprising, extensive thinning in Antarctica, affecting the ice sheet far inland. The study, led by Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, was published September 24 in Nature."
Why do we need to fight it? The increase in arable land due to warming more than offset the loosses around the coast lines. It will be great if we can settle and develop Antarctica.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Also, where is my hover car? its almost 2010 dammit!
And that's proved by.... ?
yvan eht nioj
Environment changes with or without us, wtf do I care which way it goes? We're sentient beings, we develop technologies and my goal as a Scientist is it keep the speed of technological development as high as possible, I couldn't care less what a bunch of tree hippies around me do or want. If, when some change in the environment does occur, we'll tackle it with the technology we've advanced by then. But by keeping the rate of our technological advancement as high as possible, we'll also be able to achieve numerous other benefits (Singularity amongst them).
Why does it matter if a bunch of species dies? I don't care, I eat beef/chicken... All animals and plants I consume are domesticated, no matter the impact we make on the environment, we can feed our own, civilised states through the use of hydroponics, genetically modified crops (which are just as good or better than any other crop, protein is protein is protein, it's all the same atoms and molecules, compounds...it's all just starch, glucose... and it doesn't matter what DNA it came from), and genetically modified meat.
I've never seen a penguin or a tiger or a giraffe, and I don't give a shit about them, if they were to be wiped out tomorrow, wouldn't affect me the slightest. And if somehow it would, I'd look towards technology to help me get over the problem... stop whining hippies, it's people like that makes me want to join the marines and go shoot and mow down with tanks some hippie college kids... I now understand why those guys enjoyed doing it during the 80s, you hippies are annoying and unproductive as shit. Just spreading useless FUD, because of your kind other nations who can't support their own populations did not take the genetically modified crops we offered that would have saved billions of people, why? because a bunch of dumb hippies kept saying that those crops would kill them...
I'm not going to conserve any energy, in fact I'll use more, why? because I can, and I want to, and it does no good for me to save it...
The thing you're missing is this:
Assuming that large scale warming is already well under way (And that's a big assumption given the major cooling trend we have been in for the last 10 years.) It is likely, in fact nearly guaranteed that not only can't we do anything about it now, we probably NEVER were able to do anything about it.
So what do we do to survive the inevitable alterations in our planet's ever-changing climate?
Race to the top.
That is, unleash our scientists and our businessmen to push our economy and technology forward as rapidly as possible so that even if Earth becomes uninhabitable, we might very well be able to just leave and go somewhere else more hospitable.
The problem with most of the "Church of AGW" types is that:
A) they assume our current climatic model is the norm for Earth. It isn't.
Earth has been either molten or frozen for far longer over it's lifespan than it has been temperate. Our current conditions are the anomaly, not the norm.
B) As most of them are essentially Socialists, they assume that transforming the globe into a "Workers Paradise" will solve Climate change problems. It won't.
Not only because AGW is a complete myth and we haven't ever really been able to affect anything more than highly localized weather patterns, but because Socialist countries BY THEIR NATURE develop MUCH more slowly, both economically, and technologically. (Assuming they don't collapse of their own weight or get involved in Genocide ALA National Socialism or Soviet Socialism.)
So what is the best thing that concerned politicians and governments can do?
GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY and let the capitalists GROW and ADVANCE us out of the problem. Capitalism allows us to adapt FASTER, Socialism cripples us and makes us adapt SLOWER.
The only way to survive Climate Change is to adapt to it. the sooner we accept that the better off all of Humanity will be.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
They have never been able to accurately predict what the weather will be tomorrow. It is arrogant for Al Gore (who incidentally also invented the Internet) to claim he knows what the effect will be decades from now. The largest cause of CO2 emissions is natural activity. The most abundant greenhouse gas is water vapor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_effects_in_Earth.27s_atmosphere
it's a "librul conspiracy"
This quote is bound to decrease intelligent discourse. Painting your opposition as backwoodsy by misspelling a word to match a much-maligned accent's pronunciation seems trollish behavior. Are you a troll, good sir?
Anyone who buys into the whole "man made" global warming is a NUT, pure and simple. The OUTPUT from the sun increased (with the sunspot CYCLE) and caused the earth to warm. We are now in a solar minimum, which explains the (northern hemisphere) lack of summer we had this year. Not to mention the retreating ice sheet has uncovered things like lost villages, mining camps etc. Now, if hundreds of thousands of years ago, there were places humans existed, then it wouldn't take a genius to figure out it was WARMER then. You tree hugging hand wringing anti anything humans do should just go sit in a cave somewhere and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
You make my point for me, thanks! All these cooling and warming myths are cyclical, and just not worth wasting money to try to "fix." Humans are just too tiny a factor in the eons the earth has been around, and the many tons of gasses in the atmosphere. Do you know that CO2 comprises 0.0383% of the earth's atmosphere? If modern society is producting a few "extra" tons of CO2, then doubtless some vegetation will quickly evolve to make use of it. I'm more worried about the "cap-and-trade" tax. Now there's a truly dangerous idea!