Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Collapse of Antarctic Ice Shelf Unprecedented

"The Antarctic Peninsula is undergoing greater warming than almost anywhere on Earth, a condition perhaps associated with human-induced greenhouse effects. According to the cover article published in the August 4 issue of the journal Nature, the spectacular collapse of the Antarctica's Larson B Ice Shelf, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, is unprecedented during the past 10,000 years."

Our planet is falling to pieces -- and we get to watch! Sort of a bizarre realization. In a perverse anthropic sense, we're actually quite privileged to be front-row to stuff like this. And it's only going to get better, folks!
Posted by Mac at 10:51 PM

11 comments:

Ken said...

Well, it's all happened before, folks, time after time. Myself, I'm not especially pleased to witness this, as after all, we humans must have some adverse effect on these changes, and I don't appreciate that guilt, having enough as it is. Nor do I appreciate being able to watch, any more than the once-living Anarctic coal deposits or dinosaurian fossils appreciated the great freezing - I suppose. Is that anthropic projection, Mac?

And I really don't think the planet is falling to pieces, Mac. Nothing is constant save change, and this world, and life upon it, has survived much, much worse. Many times. "Snowball Earth", meteorites, major extinctions, solar variation, super volcanoes, the list is long. Still, great changes are afoot, world wide, and occasionally even I get a bit concerned about that, though I can see little of practical value to be done. What ever's happening keeps on happening, and the forces involved are gigantic in their inertia. The list of those forces is long, too.

Now, as for civilizations surviving .... We need to get off planet. Soon. Any number of occurences, far worse than global warming, can happen just about any time, with little or no warning.

1:31 AM
TWilliam said...

We need to get off planet. Soon.

Nice thought ken, tho' not likely to happen imo. Aside from the technical challenges of interstellar travel, we've pretty much collectively shot our wad as far as the needed energy reserves for doing so. Cheap plastic non-essentials from China and drive-thru convenience are far more important than long term species survival it seems...

8:08 AM
W.M. Bear said...

"Game over, man!"

--Hudson, in "Aliens"

4:19 PM
Ken said...

You fellas are altogether too pessimistic. Alternative and viable means of localized, non-polluting energy production are even now being perfected, and offer good hope for the future.

As for societal change, that shall require a massive alteration of our collective consciousness. IMO, the nose-bloodying slaps required are enroute, and will indeed wake up most folk. Soon. Even though our species is in for one each hell of a rough ride, I really do think we've got a decent shot at multiple home planets.

As my Grandmother Myrtle said, "Gott dammit, Kenney Ray, can't never did do nuttink! Kvit cryink und get back out der an' DO IT!" I think she was right.

She also said; "KENNEY RAY! Alvays keep da bastards guessink!" A strategy I've used all my life. But irrelevant to this topic.

Cheer up, guys: we ain't dead yet, and any chance beats no chance. We've got a shot. But you can't hit the target if you don't aim.

6:04 PM
TWilliam said...

Ah yes... the cornucopian pipe dream... "If we all just really pull together and just think really hard, our indomitable human ingenuity will prevail..."

While I do appreciate the value of a positive outlook, there is a dangerous tendency on the part of the overly optimistic to ignore certain realities when they threaten to rain on their parade; then they wonder why they end up soaking wet. I for one prefer to notice the clouds on the horizon and take along an umbrella... lol

ken, I humbly suggest that you might want to investigate the issue of energy availability a bit further. What I've repeatedly seen in my own explorations is that advocates of the various "alternative energy sources" either simply don't realize, or conveniently ignore the fact that said alternatives rely on the availability of that which they are intended to replace in order to exist in the first place....

7:54 AM
W.M. Bear said...

Interestingly, environmentalists are staarting to come around to the notion that the new generation of nuclear power plants may actually be eco-friendly, and therefore to be included in acceptable energy sources for the future. This despite the fact that this is also the Bush administration's policy. (If Bush favors something, that in and of itself tends to pit me against the idea whatever it is, his recent support of Intelligent Design being a case in point. HOWEVER, odds are, in his lifetime, the man's got to be right about 1 or 2 things anyway.)

4:44 PM
TWilliam said...

Bear -

While the plants themselves might (and that's a BIG "might") be "eco-friendly", the construction of them, as well as the mining and processing of the necessary fuel most likely will not be. Assuming of course the continued ability to produce said plants without cheap fossil fuel to drive that production.

Which, as I indicated, is the problem with all "alternatives". Without cheap, readily accessible fossil fuels, there will be no large-scale nuclear power production, no large-scale wind or solar farming, no large-scale "garbage-to-gas", no large-scale "green fuels"...

Tho' I suppose it might be doable if we all stop driving tomorrow so that the remaining reserves can be put towards such projects...

(Yea, right. Like I see that happening. NOT... lol )

11:37 PM
W.M. Bear said...

The fossil-fuel shit's going to hit the economic fan sometime in the not-too-distant future, fer sure. It's just a quetion of when. My (possibly forlorn) hope is that the corporate money-grubbers will at least realize just in time that the main source of their grubbing is going away and that they need to find a new one before that happens.

Re cars, there is hope. I think hybrids can lead the way to fuel-cell all-electrics or something of this sort. One encouraging note: you have to be wait-listed for months to buy a hybrid. I think in the next five years, with oil prices soaring, hybrids will really take off. They're not the final answer but they can lead the way.

2:39 PM
Ken said...

Concerning alternative energy sources, they are most assuredly NOT pie in the sky dreams. Here on Popof Island, construction shall soon begin on a 1 Megawatt wind generator, which will be more than enough for the 903 folk who live here, at the Eastern end of the Aleutian Islands. That's just one small example. Also, the best minds of India and Japan are working on the subject. They are both very intelligent (usually) peoples with little in the way of petroleum resources, and as far as I can see are making noticeable progress in this field.

Alternate Energy Corp, http://www.cleanwatts.com/ , states the following:

"Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC) intends to provide a hydrogen system that has mass-deployment economics and provides small-scale, on-demand distributed generation of electricity. The Company anticipates scheduling demonstrations with key strategic partners in the first quarter of 2005, then shipping initial hydrogen production and electricity generation systems later in 2005. AEC's proprietary discoveries in metallurgy and process permit a small-scale unit to generate hydrogen from water through a safe, "green" system at a price competitive with the fossil fuel kWh cost of energy."

That's merely one. Plenty more out there. A lot of folk, much wiser than I, feel that money's to be made with alternate energy sources, and they want that money - so they are going for it. No Zero Point energies, no fancy anythings, just simple solutions that are viable, practical, effective. To think that our position is hopeless is simply silly.

This planet has an overabundance of humans, and it is not necessary for us ALL to pull together in harmony. Just enough of us. And, should any desire to sit in a corner and mutter that there's no use trying, they'll not be missed.

I do know that, even though not every problem is solvable, most are. A defeatist outlook is of no use to any. As an example, by any logical standard, England's position in 1940 was hopeless. But they did not quit. When I was trying to make a living off shore, by any reasonable standard, there was no chance. I did not quit, and did succeed. As long as there is a fighting chance, and it is taken, there is hope, reasonable and sane. Utopian cornucopias need not apply. Backbones are needed.

By the way, TWilliam, I do not mean this as a personal attack, honestly I don't. I merely spell tact t-a-n-k. Backwoods University and all that, don't 'cha know. ;-)

12:53 AM
Ken said...

PS: Our new wind generator is of such an efficiency that it (supposedly) will generate 650Kw or more with a 7 knot wind. Of course, you can't trust the rumours on this island. Anyway, all these new energy sources are becoming more efficient all the time. Technologies to create light crude oil from garbage and, of all things, turkey gut and manure, are now proven, with pilot plants operating. On and on. We really do have a fighting chance, if we take it. That does not mean we will survive, merely that we've got a real chance worth taking. As if we've got an option. As they say, try or die.

1:00 AM
TWilliam said...

ken -

No offense taken... ;o)

Hmm... wonder how much of those lightweight plastics in those wind turbines are made from oil? Wonder what fuels the mining and refining of the copper for the electrical components? Wonder what powers their manufacture? Wonder where that "liquid crude" that is "created from" (in reality, it is reclaimed) garbage comes from (hint: p-l-a-s-t-i-c)? Wonder what makes it possible to grow the enormous amounts of feed that make it possible to raise huge flocks of turkeys ('nother hint: fertilizers and pesticides are fossil-fuel based)?

It's really difficult I know to get one's mind around this, but it's a fact: there is no substitute for oil. Period. Nothing is as energy dense. Nothing is as portable. Nothing is as versatile. Look around you right now, as you sit at your computer, and I guarantee that nearly every single thing that your gaze falls upon exists because of cheap, readily exploitable oil. We have built our entire Western civilization around it, and when it is no longer available, that civilization will cease to function at anything near the level to which we are accustomed.

Defeatist? Certainly not. I agree that any chance is better than none. I just won't allow myself to be mislead into thinking that softening the blow means that it won't still land. In fact, it may be an unfortunate consequence of increased efforts to shift to alternatives and increase efficiency that the decline of oil accelerates. It's called the Jevons Paradox, and it may lead to an even more difficult road ahead...

11:10 AM