Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

[Rajiv]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

I would have thought that some enterprising group would have set up something like a zipcar model -- with electrically powered boats that would allow you to cross that small water divide easily and at your convenience

[mooncliff]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

Hmm, while cows, and deforestation, and melting of permafrost in the arctic resulting in decreased albedo and methane release, and clouds, and many other things may be parts of the problem, I think it is undeniable that a huge amount of carbon that was previously sequestered underground as coal and oil has been and is being injected into the atmosphere by human activity and by highly accelerated deforestation.

When we think of the Earth, we think of it the way it has been over the last 10,000 years. But if you were to watch it from 4.5 billion years ago, you would see, for the first 2 billion, no oxygen. Later, horrible ice ages in which the Earth froze to nearly the equator. Oscillations between ice ages and horrible periods of global warming when the oceans were stagnant and released choking sulfur gases into the atmosphere. So, if we look at the quite pleasant climate we have had for the last 10,000 years, we should keep in mind that it has been like this for less than 1% of Earth's history.

Whether trying to slow CO2 increase will wreck the economy, or whether carbon credits are a conspiracy, has no effect on consideration of the following.

The atmospheric CO2 concentration was very recently 280 ppm, and our fossil fuel use seems to be driving it to over 400 ppm over a period of 200 years. Does that seem like a good idea when we don't know what that will do?

Everyone is alarmed by hockey sticks, and this is the biggest hockey stick I know.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/slide...ase/core36.jpg


No one believed we could fish cod to near extinction, but we did. The entirety of the US was densely forested from New York to the Rocky Mountains, but it was all cut down or burned by humans. Pennsylvania used to supply all the oil, until it went empty. Texas used to supply all the oil until it went empty.

We can literally see to the end of the Universe and to the beginning of Time. By 2020, we will have scanned half the Galaxy and will either make First Contact or will know that we are even rarer and more precious than we already suspect. We have become really powerful. We even contemplate methods of terraforming Mars to make conditions more Earthlike. I have no doubt we are capable of drastically altering the Earth's climate, and that the result could be highly unpleasant.

This is a must-see about how the oil was formed and its relationship to nastier periods of the climate. Everything will fall in place when you watch this.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/

[ggirod]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

Originally Posted by Starving Steve
That last 100 feet or so, at Whiffen Spit at the end of Whiffen Spit Road, (as shown on the map which you posted), the Capitol Regional District of Victoria and the Province of BC refused to build a bridge. One hundred feet or so, and NO BRIDGE built! So we have to drive 26 miles to get to downtown Sooke, BC to buy groceries. TWENTY-SIX MILES !!!

If anyone doubts the damage that environmentalists do to the economy, just visit British Columbia and see for yourself.

And that 26 mile drive? It is at 50 KPH, or less, with speed traps galore!

The obvious solution is a ferry, like the Bluewater Ferry between Michigan and Ontario and you wouldn't even need customs on both ends :-) What a wonderful opportunity for private enterprise to solve the problem while making a new inexpensive scenic attraction for tourists.