Activism Change

Global Warming/Fossil Fools: Greenland ice-melt 'speeding up'

Question:

Hasta, gotcha. I’m sorry I misunderstood before. Like, "Thank you for sharing." I was getting into earnest sermonizing so much that I missed your irony – which is one of the dangers of doing earnest sermonizing, even in a good cause like environmental sanity. Have a good one, and thanks for the humor. Meanwhile, do you have any comment on the new news about accelerated melting of the Greenland glaciers? – JA

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Response:

Hasta, gotcha. I’m sorry I misunderstood before. Like, "Thank you for sharing." I was getting into earnest sermonizing so much that I missed your irony – which is one of the dangers of doing earnest sermonizing, even in a good cause like environmental sanity. Have a good one, and thanks for the humor. Meanwhile, do you have any comment on the new news about accelerated melting of the Greenland glaciers? – JA ** – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new? Thanks for your insight, Stan Now I understand better the problem and its solution… Reply to Hasta:  Are you just too young to know better, when you write that Stan’s putdown of "liberals" is any answer to anything? John…   That was irony More precisely, I just wanted to point that Stan’s statement may be correct, or may be incorrect, but at any rate does not help the slightest bit to understand the problem, asses its consequences, and devise a working solution…

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new? Thanks for your insight, Stan Now I understand better the problem and its solution… Reply to Hasta:  Are you just too young to know better, when you write that Stan’s putdown of "liberals" is any answer to anything?

John…   That was irony

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new? Thanks for your insight, Stan Now I understand better the problem and its solution… Reply to Hasta:  Are you just too young to know better, when you write that Stan’s putdown of "liberals" is any answer to anything? John…   That was irony

More precisely, I just wanted to point that Stan’s statement may be correct, or may be incorrect, but at any rate does not help the slightest bit to understand the problem, asses its consequences, and devise a working solution…

Response:

It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new?

Thanks for your insight, Stan Now I understand better the problem and its solution…

Response:

It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new? Thanks for your insight, Stan Now I understand better the problem and its solution…

Reply to Hasta:  Are you just too young to know better, when you write that Stan’s putdown of "liberals" is any answer to anything? Obviously, you may despise people who you think of as liberals – fine.  It’s a free country; go right ahead.  You have a constitutional right to do this.  And who knows:  you may be right. But having an ATTITUDE – a conservative attitude OR a liberal attitude — is exactly that.  No more.   It doesn’t ensure that you’re absorbing new information that you need to function, either as an American citizen or a citizen of the world. It doesn’t tell you a damned thing, * all by itself * about events underway in the real world outside the political filters in your brain. What’s actually happening with the climate, and what role does CO2 generated by human industry actually play in the changes that are underway?   This isn’t a question that conservativism, liberalism, "free market" capitalism, socialism, anarchism, fascism, religion, atheism, or even membership in some environmental group can answer automatically.   What are the damned scientists discovering?  What are the news media finding about the melting (or the non- melting) of the Greenland glaciers? What’s the latest data from the weather satellites saying? However much you hate "liberals," it isn’t just liberals who are slow in adjusting their thinking to this information. It’s almost everyone, because the world is really complicated and most people can’t afford to specialize in keeping track of the many trends that we — as citizens — all need to understand. What does despising "liberals" tell you about possible solutions to the AIDS crisis, Hasta?   What does liberalism, conservatism or any other "ism" tell you of the best ways to ensure clean water in your community? What does it say, if anything, about the existence or non-existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or what’s currently on Osama Bin Laden’s mind, or whether Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a good or bad strategy, militarily?   A healthy distrust of "liberalism," all by itself, doesn’t answer these questions.  It also won’t tell you whether you’re allergic to Chinese food, or whether a new patent cold medicine will work for you.  Or whether the air quality in your community is healthy or unhealthy during the evening rush hours when there are thousands of cars  on the road. You need something more than ATTITUDE to answer these questions, Hasta: you need to really dig into the information available, and you need to think about it some to see whether it fits into your current political ideas or indicates they need to be adjusted. Like all too many of us, whether of the right, left or center, you may still be using your political beliefs like a religious faith, or even an imagined magic formula, that serves to filter out practical and intellectual complications that might disturb your sleep if you had to think about them seriously. Well, if so – please wake up, and start taking the complexities seriously.  Not just as a liberal, a conservative, a libertarian, a totalitarian, a democratic socialist (like me), an environmentalist or anti-environmentalist – but as a seeker after reality.  Dismissing other people or dismissing new data on the grounds of ideology alone is child’s play, and to be a responsible citizen of the US and the world, you need to become adult.

Response:

It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new?

Stan, what added insight do you get by targeting "liberals" here? Apart from the fun of the insult, of course. Presumably you’re conservative, and you THINK that you think better than other people.     But do you really believe that conservatives — and western, American conservatives at that, and not "conservative" Hindus, Muslims, Jainists, animists, Taoists, Voodoo practicioners, Native Americans or Australian Aborigines – have all the truth in the universe on their side?   Do you seriously imagine that nobody else in the world understands anything, or sees anything important, or has anything to contribute in the way of thought — except your brand of conservatives? I think you’re just using words here, namely "liberal," to block out a whole universe of information that you don’t feel confident dealing with.  In this case the information is about global climate change and the melting of the Greenland glaciers, which is happening much faster than most people – conservatives, liberals, socialists, Christian Scientists, Mormons, etc., etc. — thought was possible. Maybe if you wave your hands in the air and chant "liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal," Stan, you can make the increased melting go away. Maybe if "liberals" believe that 2 + 2 equals 4, Stan, you can be confident that they make 7. Do you think they make 7?

Response:

It’s all happening much, much faster than we think.

Lots of things happen faster than liberals think – so what’s new?

Response:

"There is no doubt that something very major is happening here." For the past few years he has been managing a network of 10 automatic monitoring stations and his first results are alarming – the edges of the ice-sheet are melting up to 10 times more rapidly than earlier research had indicated.  Greenland ice-melt ’speeding up’                 By David Shukman BBC environment and science correspondent in Greenland First you hear a savage cracking sound, next the rolling crash of thunder. Then as the icebergs rip away from the margin of the ice-sheet they plunge into the grey waters of the Atlantic with a roar that echoes around the mountains. Nothing prepares you for the sheer scale and drama of events in this forbidding terrain and all the signs are that the changes at work here are gathering pace. The only way to reach the ice-sheet is by helicopter – a spectacular flight through remote fjords and the jagged blue-white rubble of the ice. We travelled with Danish scientist Carl Boggild of GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. For the past few years he has been managing a network of 10 automatic monitoring stations and his first results are alarming – the edges of the ice-sheet are melting up to 10 times more rapidly than earlier research had indicated. Cracks and crevasses In 2001 NASA scientists published a major study based on observations by satellite and aircraft. It concluded that the margins of the Greenland ice-sheet were dropping in height at a rate of roughly one metre a year. Now, amid some of the most hostile conditions anywhere on the planet, Carl Boggild and his team have recorded falls as dramatic as 10 metres a year – in places the ice is dropping at a rate of one metre a month. The glacier we visited – the Sermilik glacier in southern Greenland – is so volatile that one automatic monitoring station was lost into a yawning crevasse. Between a maintenance visit in May and our visit this month, new cracks had opened up in the icy surface and we had to help shift one of the devices to a safer position. Engravings from the late 19th Century show how the glacier once reached far into the ocean and satellite pictures highlight how the retreat has accelerated – the glacier dropping an astounding 150 metres in the last 15 years. The latest data shows the melting picking up even more speed. Heating up? A vicious wind whipping across 2,000 kilometres of solid ice – the length of the Greenland ice-sheet – chilled us as we filmed. But the feeling of cold was ironic – it is the rise in air temperatures recorded here that is at least partly responsible for the sudden acceleration of the melting. Dr Boggild and his colleagues, studying the physics of how the air and ice relate, conclude that as much as 55% of the melting is attributable to warming in the air. He is cautious to avoid blaming climate change too readily: "Maybe if we look back after 50 years and see how temperatures have risen, then we can call it climate change." Sea level rise Dr Boggild is all too aware of how easily he could be accused of jumping onto a climate change bandwagon. But he is adamant that the results he has gathered so far are reliable. "We can say for certain that the rate of melting has increased and we can say for certain that the height of the ice-sheet is falling, even allowing for increased ice-flow. "There is no doubt that something very major is happening here." As we speak, he checks the instruments on the automatic station. A large range of data is collected and transmitted via satellite to Copenhagen every six hours. For the first time, scientists should have a long-term, on-the-ground view of the changes taking place here. Just before we leave, there is another roar as more icebergs crash into the ocean Many more icebergs falling into the sea will cause two things to happen – the sea-level will rise and the injection of freshwater could disrupt the ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream. What happens in this remote barren land has the potential to affect us all. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3922579.stm DON’T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION: http://www.greenhousenet.org/ http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp http://www.solarcatalyst.com/ Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org = = = = STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT’S GOING ON? = = = = Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org = = = = Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace) And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general) ** ANTI-SPAM EMAIL NOTE: For email "info" and "map" don’t work. Email instead ** to m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes) at economicdemocracy.org

Response:

It’s all happening much, much faster than we think. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –  Greenland ice-melt ’speeding up’            By David Shukman BBC environment and science correspondent in Greenland First you hear a savage cracking sound, next the rolling crash of thunder. Then as the icebergs rip away from the margin of the ice-sheet they plunge into the grey waters of the Atlantic with a roar that echoes around the mountains. Nothing prepares you for the sheer scale and drama of events in this forbidding terrain and all the signs are that the changes at work here are gathering pace. The only way to reach the ice-sheet is by helicopter – a spectacular flight through remote fjords and the jagged blue-white rubble of the ice. We travelled with Danish scientist Carl Boggild of GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. For the past few years he has been managing a network of 10 automatic monitoring stations and his first results are alarming – the edges of the ice-sheet are melting up to 10 times more rapidly than earlier research had indicated. Cracks and crevasses In 2001 NASA scientists published a major study based on observations by satellite and aircraft. It concluded that the margins of the Greenland ice-sheet were dropping in height at a rate of roughly one metre a year. Now, amid some of the most hostile conditions anywhere on the planet, Carl Boggild and his team have recorded falls as dramatic as 10 metres a year – in places the ice is dropping at a rate of one metre a month. The glacier we visited – the Sermilik glacier in southern Greenland – is so volatile that one automatic monitoring station was lost into a yawning crevasse. Between a maintenance visit in May and our visit this month, new cracks had opened up in the icy surface and we had to help shift one of the devices to a safer position. Engravings from the late 19th Century show how the glacier once reached far into the ocean and satellite pictures highlight how the retreat has accelerated – the glacier dropping an astounding 150 metres in the last 15 years. The latest data shows the melting picking up even more speed. Heating up? A vicious wind whipping across 2,000 kilometres of solid ice – the length of the Greenland ice-sheet – chilled us as we filmed. But the feeling of cold was ironic – it is the rise in air temperatures recorded here that is at least partly responsible for the sudden acceleration of the melting. Dr Boggild and his colleagues, studying the physics of how the air and ice relate, conclude that as much as 55% of the melting is attributable to warming in the air. He is cautious to avoid blaming climate change too readily: "Maybe if we look back after 50 years and see how temperatures have risen, then we can call it climate change." Sea level rise Dr Boggild is all too aware of how easily he could be accused of jumping onto a climate change bandwagon. But he is adamant that the results he has gathered so far are reliable. "We can say for certain that the rate of melting has increased and we can say for certain that the height of the ice-sheet is falling, even allowing for increased ice-flow. "There is no doubt that something very major is happening here." As we speak, he checks the instruments on the automatic station. A large range of data is collected and transmitted via satellite to Copenhagen every six hours. For the first time, scientists should have a long-term, on-the-ground view of the changes taking place here. Just before we leave, there is another roar as more icebergs crash into the ocean Many more icebergs falling into the sea will cause two things to happen – the sea-level will rise and the injection of freshwater could disrupt the ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream. What happens in this remote barren land has the potential to affect us all. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3922579.stm DON’T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION: http://www.greenhousenet.org/ http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp http://www.solarcatalyst.com/ Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org = = = = STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT’S GOING ON? = = = = Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org = = = = Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace) And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general) ** ANTI-SPAM EMAIL NOTE: For email "info" and "map" don’t work. Email instead ** to m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes) at economicdemocracy.org

Response:

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