Cracks Signal Massive Iceberg Forming In Antarctica 147
Several readers have submitted news (as covered by an AFP article carried by the Sydney Morning Herald) that a massive iceberg is forming in the Antarctic. The rift in the PIne Island Glacier "is widening at a rate of two metres a day, said NASA project scientist Michael Studinger. When the ice breaks apart, it will produce an iceberg more than 880 square kilometres, said Mr Studinger, who is part of the US space agency's IceBridge project. But the process is not a result of global warming, he said." Also at the BBC.
See? (Score:4, Funny)
Global warming isn't shrinking the icebergs, its creating new ones!
Re:See? (Score:5, Informative)
A paper published in Nature back in December describes the cause: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n8/full/ngeo1188.html [nature.com]
Here we combine our earlier data with measurements taken in 2009 to show that the temperature and volume of deep water in Pine Island Bay have increased. Ocean transport and tracer calculations near the ice shelf reveal a rise in meltwater production by about 50% since 1994. The faster melting seems to result mainly from stronger sub-ice-shelf circulation, as thinning ice has increased the gap above an underlying submarine bank on which the glacier was formerly grounded. We conclude that the basal melting has exceeded the increase in ice inflow, leading to the formation and enlargement of an inner cavity under the ice shelf within which sea water nearly 4C above freezing can now more readily access the grounding zone.
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That just for once they'll manage to see the difference between global warming activists and the anti-cellphone, anti-vaccine alarmists
Given that there's people in this very thread ignoring that disclaimer, and claiming that it must be global warming, I'm not sure there's a difference to be seen.
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Certainly. There's a world of difference between IPCC conclusions, and stuff that Green Peace will say. The IPCC tends to be, well, scientific. There's some bias in the IPCC - they tend to be believers, and tend to eliminating errors that work against them but not the errors in their favor. On the other hand, the whole organization is incredibly conservative - they don't buy the whole "precautionary principle" thing.
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Sorry, if you look a bit you'll find former members of the IPCC that admit their conclusions were not published as found by science but highly exaggerated to create a political and economic result.
in other words, the IPCC cannot be considered an unbiased scientific organization. Their reports and results are driven by the political needs of their parent organization, the UN.
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You'll find people who claim that their statements and assessments were taken out of context, exaggerated or whatever for non-scientific reasons in about every organization. That doesn't make the organization in question any less scientific, it just shows that humans are humans, and some will feel wronged at any given time.
Re:See? (Score:4, Interesting)
You are assuming that everyone that is a global warming activist is a perfectly rational thinking person, and that none of them are profiteering by ginning up concern that is out of proportion, as well as suggesting solutions that are profitable but aren't feasible.
Most GW activists are well meaning, but there is enough crooked or just stupid stuff going on with "green" that it dilutes the message. (The govt & Solyndra, was either stupidity or corruption, neither is good.) It doesn't help that anyone who IS rationale, qualified and questions some of the conclusions is instantly labeled as a whacko.
Everyone knows the earth is warming, but there is legitimate arguments regarding how much is man made and how much is part of a larger cycle. Again, any time a rationale person says "Yes, man is causing some of this, but there may be other forces we don't understand" they are automatically labeled crazy, a Republican or similar.
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At my workplace, we have a "green" initiative. In our breaks rooms we swapped out the plastic coffee stirs with wooded ones because they are biodegradable. We swapped out paper cups with plastic ones to save trees.
I'm so confused...
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At my workplace, we have a "green" initiative. In our breaks rooms we swapped out the plastic coffee stirs with wooded ones because they are biodegradable. We swapped out paper cups with plastic ones to save trees. I'm so confused...
To be green you should use proper coffee mugs and teaspoons. Anything that is used once then thrown away, compared to something that can be reused thousands of times, is wasting resources.
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Water passes through the system -- used, but not "thrown away" in the same sense as something destined for a land fill or incinerator. Depending on the soap used, it can also just end up as a nice fertilizer downstream.
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There's nothing wrong with that, but of course, it's very vague. You'll need some probabilities. According to scientific consensus, the chance that man is predominantly responsible is >95%.
If you have reason to believe this chance is much lower, you'll need to come up with some solid numbers. If you can't provide them, don't blame people for labeling you irrational.
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Everyone knows the earth is warming, but there is legitimate arguments regarding how much is man made and how much is part of a larger cycle. Again, any time a rationale person says "Yes, man is causing some of this, but there may be other forces we don't understand" they are automatically labeled crazy, a Republican or similar.
There really hasn't been any significant warming for about 13 years, in fact when the new BEST dataset is analyzed there hasn't been any non-significant warming either
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You are disingenuous at best. The global temperatures are quite noisy compared to the trend, so it's hard to find anyperiod of 13 years where you find a statistically significant trend, either up or down.
If you look at the trend, though, there's no reason to assume the last 13 years are different from the years before that. This article has some nice graphs to show that point:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/the-real-problem-with-the- [wordpress.com]
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That's a completely different BEST you are talking about than the one I was reading, as the one I remember was claiming that the global warming since the 1950ies was at least 1 degree and genereally agreeing with the statements published by NOAA and other organizations.
Just to check: We are talking about the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project [berkeleyearth.org], right?
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I think it's nonsense to group global warming skeptics in with the anti-cellphone, anti-vaccine nutjobs.
Their similarity is that they maintain their "skepticism" [choke] in defiance of all available evidence. What motivates them might sometimes be different, eg AIDS denialism is generally associated with left-wing nutjobs and AGW denialism with right-wing nutjobs, but I suspect there is psychological kinship in these anti-elitist movements.
The global warming skeptics might be wrong, but you can have se
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Global warming isn't shrinking the icebergs, its creating new ones!
Umm... I know that was a joke but of course global warming would create new icebergs (not that it's responsible for this one apparently). Ice breaking away from existing stable formations, forming icebergs, is exactly what you'd expect if the ice is melting.
Actually, glaciers advancing and pushing ice into the ocean which then breaks off is exactly how this works. If the glaciers were melting, they wouldn't be pushing into the ocean to break off and form icebergs. THAT is why smart people are careful to point out that this isn't caused by global warming. To claim that glaciers getting bigger is caused by global warming is insane. Don't go there. You will make a fool of yourself. Oops. To late.
Re:See? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, there is evidence that warming can cause meltwaters to get under glaciers and lubricate them, causing faster flow downhill. And for glaciers that end in ice shelves in the ocean, warming can cause the ice shelf to break up into icebergs faster. And when the ice shelf is reduced, it presents less resistance to the glacier flowing into the ocean, further increasing the extent of ocean ice. So, until the ice melts so much that the glaciers no longer flow into the ocean, warming will most likely cause more icebergs.
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Actually, there is evidence that warming can cause meltwaters to get under glaciers and lubricate them, causing faster flow downhill. And for glaciers that end in ice shelves in the ocean, warming can cause the ice shelf to break up into icebergs faster. And when the ice shelf is reduced, it presents less resistance to the glacier flowing into the ocean, further increasing the extent of ocean ice. So, until the ice melts so much that the glaciers no longer flow into the ocean, warming will most likely cause more icebergs.
While there are scientists who advocate for that hypothesis, there is also evidence to the contrary. Basically there's no scientific consensus on the idea.
Where will it go? (Score:2)
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That, or hit New York [fantasticfiction.co.uk].
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(Prefix: I RTFA and it doesn't answer this question)
Even if the iceberg doesn't melt, if it's currently on dry land and it falls into the ocean, I assume it will raise ocean levels by some small amount. Does any know how much?
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From wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages at least 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) in thickness.
From summary:
it will produce an iceberg more than 880 square kilometres.
From wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
Surface area
510,072,000 km2[12][13][note 5]
148,940,000 km2 land (29.2 %)
361,132,000 km2 water (70.8 %)
From google [google.se]:
((880 (km^2)) * (1,6 km)) / (361 132 000 (km^2)) = 3,89885139 millimeters
Answer: About 4mm.
Re:Where will it go? (Score:4, Informative)
The end of the glacier is much thinner than the average antarctic ice sheet, and it's already floating in the water, still attached to the glacier. If it breaks off, it's not going to raise water levels any more.
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Actually, the small amount of mass above the water line will go below the waterline when it melts, thus raising the waterline. However, water contracts when melting, which will more than make up for the change in level. The displacement of the ice is thus exactly the displacement of the melted water.
You can test this easily: leave some ice in a glass and note the waterline before and after melting.
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There are some small differences though. The ice is mostly fresh water, and the surrounding seas contain salt. The melting will cause a small, net rise in sea level. This is a very small effect, though.
Also, the local gravity field from the ice pulls the surrounding sea water closer to the pole. If the pole loses mass, the water will spread out more.
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Wow about the gravity! I do not that either the salinity or gravity would contribute anything measurable. But +5 pedantic for sure!
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Some places could actually experience dropping sea levels as a result of melting ice.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/05/gravity-of-glacial-melt [harvardmagazine.com]
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Thanks, Arlet! I had no idea! The world is far stranger and more complex than any individual can imagine.
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If it were currently on dry land, we'd call it a glacier, not an iceberg.
It's already in the ocean, so cracking off and drifting into the open ocean will not raise sea levels.
What happens when it melts? Here's an experiment for you. Put an ice cube in a small glass of water, e.g. a shot glass. Mark the water level. Wait for the ice to melt. What happened to the water level?
See, even you can do science in your kitchen.
Re:Where will it go? (Score:4, Funny)
you'll also end up with a warm Gin and Tonic, but who said you didn't have to suffer for science?
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If there isn't any quinine in it, it's not a gin and tonic. You want to get malaria or something?
I've always wondered whether the gin was supposed to help the quinine go down, or the other way around.....
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Cute. Pedantic, but cute. And completely incorrect.
"Glass of water" != "empty [water] glass" much like a "glass of milk" is not referred to as a "milk glass" when empty. The "of xxx" part indicates it has some quantity of xxx physically present in it.
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I want to put a bunch of motors on this baby and drive it around. About 3 nuclear reactors should provide enough power, I just need to figure out how to get the correct amount of propellers.
Not a result of Global Warming. (Score:3)
Does it bother anyone else that they had to say this? It's like doing a report on spring runoff and pointing out that it's not a result global warming. Are people really that ignorant of how natural processes work?
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Do you really need an answer to this?
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I'm no expert. Intuitively, a block of ice breaking away from a bigger block of ice kinda makes me think there's melting, thus warming, involved.
Re:Not a result of Global Warming. (Score:5, Informative)
"...Intuitively, a block of ice breaking away from a bigger block of ice kinda makes me think there's melting, thus warming, involved..."
Why do you think that? This is the end of a GLACIER. Usually, glaciers move (slowly) downhill, until they reach warmer regions, where they melt. In this case the glacier moved downhill until it met the sea, upon which it floated out. After a fair bit has floated out, it will break off, due to flexing in the waves and tides. That is what has just happened, with a rather big bit...
Actually, if it is cold and snowy up in the mountains, the glaciers will move faster. And more bits will fall off the end of the glacier, more rapidly. This is often shot by journalists at the foot of the glacier, and used as 'confirmation of Global Warming'.....
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Actually, if it is cold and snowy up in the mountains, the glaciers will move faster. And more bits will fall off the end of the glacier, more rapidly.
As long as the temperature isn't too high, a higher temperature should result in more snow since there will be more water vapour in the air.
This, of course, is under the assumption that the temperature is still well below 0C.
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Why are you asking why he thinks that? He already told you quite explicitly. "a block of ice breaking away from a bigger block of ice kinda makes me think there's melting, thus warming, involved"
Not everyone is an expert / knows about how these processes work. It is a bit rude to assume that everyone knows what you know. Don't look down on people for not sharing your interests.
Why the hell is this modded -1? All s/he's doing is stating facts, and a damn sight better than many others do.
If you can't moderate sensibly, then please don't even try.
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The articles state that this glacier breaks off every 10 years or so. The last time was 2001.
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Biannual. Once in the southern hemisphere, once in the north.
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Biannual. Once in the southern hemisphere, once in the north.
Not all of us migrate.
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I'm no expert. Intuitively, a block of ice breaking away from a bigger block of ice kinda makes me think there's melting, thus warming, involved.
TFA says that they're making the announcement to try and avoid all the sensationalist news stories that will appear when the mainstream media gets hold of it.
Wonder if it will work...
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Re:Not a result of Global Warming. (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems reasonable and responsible to avoid this being dragged into the AGW/CC debate one way or another if the scientists concerned are pretty sure that CC plays no significant part in this event, because lots of glacier/calving activity *has* been tied to CC, pro or anti.
So, it wouldn't be ignorance that would lead people to wonder. And thus forestalling inappropriate linkage is good.
Rgds
Damon
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You may want to look up projective identification.
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And which side of the debate were you assuming that I'm on, if any?
Responsible science is just that, whether or not a particular fact easily fits with how one sees the world.
(This isn't a *whoosh*: this is really my core point.)
Rgds
Damon
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The line of thinking that you have expressed reminds me of how Creationists used to argue that the theory of Evolution must be false because they believe it advocates an "atheistic" view of the universe.
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An interesting subtlety, thanks!
Rgds
Damon
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Yes. I hope this doesn't come as a big surprise.
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indeed, I am often amazed at how ignorant people are, especially when it comes to how ignorant other people are.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I was wondering where to insert "This isn't rocket science" and I thought this was the most appropriate spot.
My Mistake. . . (Score:1)
Apparently many people are not aware that snow melts every spring. That was my bad.
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Spring snow melting has nothing to do with this though. It's a frozen sheet of ice, slowly sliding into the ocean, and when it's gets too big and thin, a piece breaks off. The last time this happened was in 2001.
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Does it bother anyone else that they had to say this? It's like doing a report on spring runoff and pointing out that it's not a result global warming. Are people really that ignorant of how natural processes work?
It's not really like that, no. Spring runoff happens every year, and it happens in areas of the world inhabited by the readership of said news service. Country-sized iceburgs only break off this shelf about once every ten years, and it happens half a world away from the readership of said news service. Are people really that ignorant of the differences in frequency and location of natural processes, and the likely effect that has on the familiarity of most people with them?
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If the ice shelf breaks away, it gets out of the way of the glacier that is still on land, which then accelerates. This does add more water to the oceans, and so raises sea level. In fact, the Pine Island Glacier has accelerated since people have been monitoring it, and the ice shelf, when measured after each iceberg breaks off, has been getting smaller.
Global warming (Score:1)
In recent years, satellite and airborne measurements have recorded a marked thinning of the PIG, which may be related to climate changes.
From The Syndey Morning Herald:
When the ice breaks apart, it will produce an iceberg more than 880 square kilometres, said Mr Studinger, who is part of the US space agency's IceBridge project. But the process is not a result of global warming, he said.
The BBC also conveniently did not include that last sentence from the source. I don't know what this tells you, but to me it appears as if the BBC intentionally wanted to scare its readers with global warming. Seems like the BBC is also illiterate and can't write properly (they write Nasa instead of NASA, yet PIG instead of Pig).
Bipolar antarctica? (Score:1)
Bipolar antarctica sad about recent news.
it's the polar bears! (Score:3, Funny)
yeah, it's the penguins and the polar bears, they've been lighting fires.
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yeah, it's the penguins and the polar bears, they've been lighting fires.
Although I realize this is a joke, I feel obliged to mention, there are no polar bears in Antarctica.
ah ha! .. you see? :)
Video on the crack (Score:5, Informative)
Clash of the titans (Score:2)
What would happen if something that size hit a country or continent at say, 1 meter per second? I'm not sure of the magnitude of that kind of catastrophe at all.
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The same thing that happens when similar sized bergs hit land, as they do all the time in the polar regions.
They ground in water which is about 100-200ft depth, and leave big gouges in the bottom.
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Which I'm sure would be awesome to see which is probably why there's no video footage of that kind of thing anywhere (let alone in high resolution).
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I think I smell an action flick here. Maybe we can send Bruce Willis and Clint Eastwood on a suicide mission (please!) to nuke the iceberg before it makes landfall.
Of course, they would have to battle laser equipped sharks and a stultifying bureaucracy....
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I think I smell an action flick here. Maybe we can send Bruce Willis and Clint Eastwood on a suicide mission (please!) to nuke the iceberg before it makes landfall.
Of course, they would have to battle laser equipped sharks and a stultifying bureaucracy....
... and "terrist" Guaa'ulds who'd secretly loaded the berg with Naquadria and were driving it up the Potomac toward the Pentagon! Wanna try to get a Kickstarter project going?
[Obligatory Grammar Nazi contribution: is that an elipsis followed by a period?]
Re:Clash of the titans (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/ESAAQTTHN6D_index_0.html [esa.int] [ESA]
The ESA has a great deal of imagery on it.
A 2D iceberg? (Score:2)
Shouldn't it be measured in cubic kilometers?
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as we are using metric here and also talking Antarctica, that would come under Australian metric measurements, that would be measured in VSH - Volume of Sydney Harbour, and we all knows that's 562,000 megalitres (562 million cubic metres), as I don't know the average thickness of this piece of ice(the article seem to state it runs 50m thick, but is that an average or just the max?), I shall leave it to someone else to work out.
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That would make it seem smaller, as antarctic icebergs tend to be low and flat. I'd guess that it averages less than 500 meters thick, and it probably doesn't have the photogenic high peak that make arctic icebergs so spectacular. Saying an iceberg is 9/10 underwater may be true, but if there isn't anything high above water, that doesn't push them down very far.
An Idea (Score:1)
There are many regions around the world, particularly in India and Africa that are desperate for fresh water. Why not send a tanker up there with a legion of laborers to harvest these icebergs? Instead of just letting it melt into the ocean.
People may not know this, but before modern refrigeration, workers used to manually harvest big blocks of ice out of lakes with saws. Then your local Ice-guy would walk up to the side of your house, open a little door and stick a smaller block of ice through your wall
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There are many regions around the world, particularly in India and Africa that are desperate for fresh water. Why not send a tanker up there with a legion of laborers to harvest these icebergs? Instead of just letting it melt into the ocean.
People may not know this, but before modern refrigeration, workers used to manually harvest big blocks of ice out of lakes with saws. Then your local Ice-guy would walk up to the side of your house, open a little door and stick a smaller block of ice through your wall, and into your icebox. This was how you kept food relatively cool.
What a brilliant idea! I highly doubt such a concept has ever been conceptualized before!
Oklahoma ready to break off (Score:1)
Cracks have been seen as far north as central Oklahoma! lol
Not caused by global warming my foot (Score:2)
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Actually not as much as you'd think (Score:5, Insightful)
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A popular theory says that the thinner ozone layer has increased the polar vortex winds. The vortex acts as a barrier to block warmer air from the rest of the planet.
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However, before we can make intelligent
Re:Climate Change, not Global Warming (Score:4, Insightful)
Both of those are real things, one of them leads to the other.
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When the GW and now CC crowd couldn't get enough money by begging, taxing, and creating tariffs to e.g. stop cutting the forests near the equator, they resorted to taking it in the form of carbon credits. It's all about stealing from future generations and making them serfs. The GW and CC crowd are just pawns and they don't even know it. Maybe they know it and they think they will be rewarded, sadly no.
Along the same lines have you been watching Greece lately? The plan is for the ESM(European Stability
Re:Climate Change, not Global Warming (Score:4, Informative)
Global warming, and local climate change. Past winters were actually warmer than usual, even though people remember them as cold. That's because they only look in their back yard, and not at the world as a whole.
Past winter, it was warm in South America, North Africa, the Middle East, and it was exceptionally warm in the Arctic. All averaged out over the whole world, including oceans, it was +0.43 degree Celsius warmer than the 1951-1980 baseline.
The winter of 2009-2010 was even warmer, at +0.68 deg C, even though the US and Europe were below average.
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The period 1920-1950 was about 0.1 deg C less than 1950-1980, so all the numbers would go up by that amount. Why ?
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You have to PAY the Army somehow to drag away the lazy workers who don't like the money YOU say that they earned. Later, the Military MIGHT say they deserve more money because beating skulls in is hard work.
Only the people who benefit, can actually BE Libertarians in this scenario, so I suppose, it fits in perfectly with a free market dictatorship like China.
but the lack of pollution controls, means that there is nobody down-wind, and you cannot benefit from screwing up the environment -- because it is alre
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Now you're getting it - warlords instead of peasants or slaves. Paying one way or another doesn't matter - it would be a wet dream for Koch et al if it was possible to bribe the Army to take action on their behalf just like a Chinese mine owner. Those pushing this form of anarchy think they can end up as the warlords if they think it through at all.
To an extent the USA started as a lot of attempts at Utopia but it universally sucked
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A Libertarian Utopia on an 880 square kilometer ice sheet?
In theory, it sounds like a great idea -- which works out perfectly for Libertarians as "in theory," they have great ideas as well.
Unfortunately, there is no middle class of Penguins there for Polar Bears to work to death, nor an infrastructure created by intensive "wealth stealing" socialist programs to run into the ground with neglect to cover for the Low Tax theory of progress.
Of course, they've probably got DECADES to go before the iceberg breaks