The Value of Ice

Nan Climate Change, , , ,

An interactive NPR presentation (you have to scroll down to see the changing pictures) that needs to be seen by as many people as possible …

The Melting of Artic Ice

The sad part about this very real presentation is how the moneyed crowd pooh-poohs these FACTS because their bank accounts take precedence over the life of the Earth and the lives of the people who live here.

37 thoughts on “The Value of Ice”

  1. For some reason I can only see the video of the wildfires, no sound. It’s been that kind of week.
    However. One thing to consider about the melting glaciers: at this time much of the world is drying up. The Middle East used to be lush and green. The colorado river is a trickle to what it once was, and the Mississippi is shrinking. Even our own land has dried up so much the birds have left, for the most part, and the driveway hasn’t washed out in two decades. The swamp at the end of the road is now a damp spot on the map, and even the frogs ignore it.

    We treasure those glaciers, forgetting that much of the world’s water is tied up in them. We’ve gotten so used to that, we forget that much of that water belongs to the rest of the earth. As the earth warms up again the water trapped in the glaciers will melt and give us back some greenery. Maybe no more wildfires on the West Coast… Maybe a bit of green in the Middle east. Maybe the river that used to flow along the back of our property will come back, a bit.

    Maybe we should stop tinkering and consider what we’re trying to ‘save’.

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    • Sorry you can’t see the presentation … did you scroll down from that first image of the fire? I guess I should have mentioned that it’s an “interactive” presentation. In fact, I’m going to add that right now!

      BTW, I agree with your remarks!

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      • Oh, whew. I was afraid I might have started a ‘firestorm” …and no I didn’t scroll down, there seemed nowhere to go. I’m also working from an older computer that keeps warning me to upgrade, upgrade, or die…so I thought it might just be me.
        I’ll go back and try again.

        (and thank you)

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    • There are massive consequences to melting all of that glacial water. The vast majority of that water will end up in the ocean, raising sea levels and potentially displacing hundreds of millions or even billions. Those climate refugees will have to go somewhere, and the US is likely to towards the top of the list.

      We’ve effectively been tinkering with the climate for the last 200 years, although most of the GHG emissions have come in the last 50 (that the power of exponential growth.) Perhaps that’s the tinkering that we need to stop, and considering what it means to continue our experimentation on the environment with out unfettered dumping if GHG’s into the atmosphere?

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      • nothing says ALL of the glacier ice will melt, but we could certainly do with a vast chunk of it. If you read about the geologic and geographic history of the Sahara, once upon a time it was fertile grass land. Forested. As the water disappeared, so did the forests.
        One thing we need to stop is spraying vast amounts of poisons over our crops, our lawns, our forests, to eliminate insects. Many of those insects, including bees, are vital. and those insects also feed birds, frogs, etc. We’re too quick to assume that all bugs are bad and all sprays are good. Are you old enough to remember “Quick Henry, the Flit” (which was DDT and used generously to kill anything with wings…

        You’re right. we should stop tinkering with something that needs no tinkering.

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        • Just in response to Judy, Brazil is releasing 5 billion genetically altered mosquitoes… who will pass on the genetic blocks to their offspring that stops a veritable host of mosquito-borne viruses including Zika, Dengue, and Yellow fever. But, alas, nothing yet on the malaria front specifically, other than a reduction of over 90% of malaria cases for human populations living in these zones of release. In other words, the natural world is not benign and I think it is necessary to address these scourges hopefully using (relatively) benign rather than scorched earth tactics. As a species, we are progressing in this approach. It’s from DDT specifically (from Silent Spring) that we now have the Environmental Protection Agency and we can thank Nixon (do we have to?) for bringing it into being and helping this tactical transition.

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  2. Reblogged this on The Truth Seeking Atheist and commented:

    Polar ice is melting at the fastest rates ever recorded, and it’s having a drastic impact on the environment. Sea levels have risen to the highest levels on record as more water, and rising ocean temperatures drive this. Carbon dioxide and methane continue to climb in the atmosphere. Human activity is changing the planet, and this will have national security impacts for Western countries as people migrate from areas that cannot afford to mitigate the effects of global warming.

    How long can we continue to collectively deny that global warming is happening? Probably until people realize that it’s more expensive to deny reality than to change how we live.

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  3. When it comes to climate change caused by human activity, one might be tempted to blame humanity… which is true as far as it goes and just as useful for producing solutions (as in, not at all). But it is a collective responsibility even though some are more dedicated to denying reality than others – usually for profit – but let’s not forget that most of us continue to contribute to it with excellent reasons for doing so. After all, we’ve known for over 70 years exactly what would would happen to the atmosphere by relying on burning ever increasing amounts of carbon based energy. These reports funded by the oil industry were well known and presented to the various oil company boards in the 1950s and Congress in the 60s. Since then, we’ve been developing a great deal of knowledge on how this carbon burning and emitting energy source would, does, and will play out in negative trends and feedback loops on natural systems… on a global scale. Like predicting a slow moving car wreck and then watching it unfold in a frame-by-frame way, it is fascinating just how deeply we do understand cause and effect. Do you realize it was 25 years ago today that Michael Mann’s famous ‘hockey stick’ graph on global warming graph hit mass media and started today’s current culture war on climate science and those who do it?

    So none of what is presented in the video should be or is surprising at all… except perhaps for aliens just arriving from a distant planet or by those who simply don’t care enough to learn about it. And that’s most of the global population. But for anyone with any interest at all in understanding climate change, the information presented here has been easily available for many decades. And we can see how this accumulated knowledge has had such a dramatic effect on how voters and environmentalists support workable policies to counter it… as in, not at all.

    So how many lost homes to dry and wet storms and floods and fires and droughts does it take, how many deaths to heat and pestilence and famine will it take, how much will it have to cost in real dollars to cope with these dramatic changes in the climate, to convince policy makers – and the voters who elect them – that it’s time to get serious about changing our energy system as soon as possible and the national war footing stance now necessary to keep these committed changes to only catastrophic? (Remember, all of this imagery is with a mere 1C change we’re experiencing today and we’re on track to 4.5C global change by 2100 assuming carbon neutral is ‘achieved’ by 2050… and even that is highly doubtful.)

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    • What will it take? It will take each and every individual being affected PERSONALLY.

      Although there are many who are consciously doing what they can to avert future disaster, far too many simply read about the fires and floods and famines, shake their heads, and mutter under their breath … “Thank God it wasn’t here.”

      IOW, while I think many people are AWARE that things are changing, it’s simply an irrelevant fact because it doesn’t affect THEM. However, having said that, I also believe there are those who think the entire scenario is overblown.( And I know some of them personally. ) How we overcome this type of thinking is the REAL challenge.

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  4. Yeah….but…but…what about the REAL issues threatening the lives of all kind, decent, Jesus-loving ‘Muricans everywhere, huh?! You know, like the fact the woke lib bastards are sending hundreds of millions of trans children into our country every day from Mexico to eat our infants and to burn loving Christians alive at the stake by the hundreds of millions every night?! What about THOSE issues!!?? Atheists have turned ‘Murica into a pool of evil grime run by cross-dressing, woke movie actors and YOU wanna post articles about some fake, made up polar ice cap trash!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!! You’re SOOOOO lost!!! Thank Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we have decent, smart, kind people like Tucker Carlson and MTG to tell us the facts and keep us sane. Without them and the God-sent Fox News, atheist, woke, libtards would already have burned ‘Murica to dust. So, take my advice and focus on the real threats in this world, and leave the fake news to atheists and other God-hating, cross-dressing, hate-filled, uninformed fools. As for me, I’m SMART!! VERY, VERY, VERY smart, and I know who to believe. AndiIt sure ain’t fake news like the tripe spouted here!! $Amen$

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    • The individual approach to understanding and addressing climate change and our role in it – like our ‘carbon footprint’ (thinking that if each of us just did more to reduce our use of this or that) – is flat out ineffective. It amounts to nothing. So, too, is it at the very best useless to blaming others for a problem each of us contributes towards. In other words, unless you yourself are burning zero carbon for your lifestyle and needs including absolutely everything you use (including internet and ALL things digital, BTW) blaming others for a problem each of is causing in measures large and small is nothing but hypocritical performance that only deepens resentment that we feel justified in putting ourselves on self fabricated pedestals as if better than… (fill in the blank).

      No. All of us are just as guilty as anyone else – including Jesus-loving, Trump voting, white supremacists who are often caricaturized as the kind of voter who disagrees with us – when it comes to climate change because collectively we’ve failed to address the real problem: relying on a carbon-based energy system. There isn’t a single such voter in Canada that defeated a Green Policy government in the early 2000s: that resounding defeat at the polls took a majority of ‘well educated’ Canadians to buy into the lies that it was ‘too expensive’ (yet dwarfed in actual public cost by damage caused by the last Florida hurricane). In other words, all of us are collectively responsible for not understanding the primacy of the danger, the scope and depth and cost it presents to all of us, and not demanding that it be met by public policy when other issues drove us to vote on what we thought more important then.

      And that is what’s going on today: by constantly reeling out ‘progressive’ policies that barely satisfy the most extreme elements of the Left (but the vast majority of citizens think is batshit crazy), current left wing ‘progressive’ governments are feeding life into the very worst kind of political authoritarians that oppose the crazy publicly and replace it with their own crazy… usually nothing more than talking points about blame and anger and resentment and not real policies of solutions to real world problems.

      A good first step would be to get past this blame-game shit and stay on target: addressing the use of carbon based energy and replacing it as fast is humanly possible. Politicians need to hear this non stop from voters: lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.

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      • @Tildeb, perhaps you are right and blaming others is not a fruitfull approach. What would work?

        It seems to me that the further to the right and less educated voters are, the more likely they have created denialism in this issue almost like part of an identity. As if their political identity and beliefs were not formulated by values and ideology they believe in as much as just from disbelieving anything the left proposes from gun regulation to climate change. Almost as if the left wing politicians declared today that these problems have been blown from proportion, the right-wing voters would become the most ardent environmentalists and proponents for gun regulation tomorrow.

        Denialism is a great threat and a tool for the Conservative populist. They appeal to ignorant segment of the society who are easily scared both by overblowing threat from the outsider, the immigrant just like they did with the Jews not so long ago. A threat they promise to save their voters, while pandering to the fear of the same voters have about the climate change, by making out, that it is not a serious threat and especially, that they do not need to change or sacrifice anything in their lifestyle. All the voters need to do themselves is to vote the populist into power, sit and relax when that position of power is semented. Like for example is happening in Hungary.

        Here in Finland we just had elections and it was won by two right wing parties. One raised alarmism of national debt and promised to save the wellfare-state by cutting spending on social help and handing out tax exemptions to all. The other promised to limit immigration (when infact we are in desperate need of immigrant workforce, because of our aging population), lower the price of gass and to sift the goal of carbon neutrality to the unseen future. Almost half of the voters bought into these two parties. While the red-green left had only self sacrifice, ambitious plans about better education & the green transfer and hard facts to offer, their support was hardly a bit over one third of votes.

        It appears to me, that some strange black & white propaganda of, if we can not reach absolute resolution to any problem right away, then even trying is a wasted effort, is going about the climate change. This sort of nihilism has joined forces with outright denialism and poses a hindrance to us actually doing anything about the climate change. Have you noticed the same?

        How to fight populism, conservatism and denialism deriving from ignorant insecurities?

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        • This is why basic economics and self interest will play a determining role effectively addressing the root problem of climate change. One cannot be economically competitive using an archaic, expensive, and toxic energy supply if a modern, inexpensive, secure, and sustainable source is available no matter what reality denying partisan tribe one belongs to.

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          • Yes, but political descionmaking has a great impact on that issue too. For there to be such a choise, it requires help from politicians and certainly not opposition to these efforts. For example the windmill plants today produce a major part of our electricity here today, but without the early support and tarifs granted to them by our left-wing “Red-Green” politicians this transfer from fossil fuels to sustainable energy would not have happened and we would have been neck deep in trouble with their main provider across the border, as it was in the self interrest of many major Capitalists here to build on buying cheap oil and gass from Russia. These have invested in Nationalist and Conservative political parties to spread propaganda against renewable energy sources and after decades of campaigning, that message has fallen through. Facts seem to matter not, like how it is not only a matter of the world surviving climate crisis, or our nation surviving various degrees of confrontation with Russia, or even the question of self interrest to actually buying ones electricity and heating energy cheaper, when the attitudes and identity are already in play. Why else would and how could they in the Nationalist party gain success by promising to get the gass prices down and removing the climate concerns to the far future?

            I see the green transition and a transition towards fairer and better world happening all over the globe, but it is not destiny guiding us, rather the efforts of people taking us there. There is also an evermore desperate and extreme backlash to it too, and I wonder, if we have enough time.

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          • This is why it takes special people – like Musk – to show how to transition a dirty industry to renewable, why it makes sense in every economic way to be environmentally sustainable, create over a hundred thousand good paying jobs, and force an entire legacy carbon industry to either adapt or die. Not in 30 years but now.

            Biden, in spite of a massive infrastructure green deal, still vilifies non union over union and pretends that Tesla isn’t an industry leading visionary or hasn’t already privately paid for an entire multi-continental network of charging stations no one else can match, or even noticed Red states lining up to utilize the two way stabilizing charging that Tesla car owners offer to brittle electrical grids. But notice that those most entrenched in vilifying this clean industry leader are not extreme right wing gas guzzling, pickup truck spewing, gun toting yahoos but ‘liberal’ government, ‘liberal’ mass media, and the typical ‘liberal’ citizen only too willing to go along with the narrative of presuming a white older rich man must be the worst of the worst. Granted, the Twitter fiasco has done him no service, but when it comes to building a green and sustainable future, Musk has stepped up and delivered what no one lese in history has been able to emulate. Tesla is a key component in altering the carbon based world to renewable. And that is the fact that matter most. (Tesla heat pumps will be the next big thing – no moving parts in the pump itself – and is aligned to reduce just over 20% of the global carbon now needed for heating and cooling. You think the vehicles made an impact? Waiting for it…

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          • I will not say much about Musk, as he appears to be a bit of a hero of yours. I do agree, that he is a visionary and has achieved much. I promise to be properly impressed when the pump you expect comes to market and changes things for better. I must say however, that I do not think much of the criticism, ridicule, or even hate he has accumulated along his career is due to being old, or rich, nor especially because he is white, like you seem to think. Would the same people, who put uncle Joe into power, have hatred towards those defining attributes? Not likely.

            Such progressive visionaries, as Musk take societies forward step by step. Yet, it is good to remember, that they are only human. And that the power a Capitalist weilds, is not theirs due to any democratic processes, rather they have all the makings of despots. Unless their power is restricted by politicians elected by the people to set laws. A nother visionary Henry Ford told his fellow industrialists, that the modern worker needed proper salary to be able to buy the industrial products. On the other hand he supported the Nazi-party with considerable donations possibly crucially contributing in their rise to power and allowed them to distribute Hitlers racist propaganda at his factories. In the end Henry made a fortune on the war Hitler started. Yes, I admit I drove a Ford before I gave up cars, and no I am not demanding everybody else does the same. There are good reasons to own a car. However, altough electric cars help us combat the climate change, even they are a part of the problem. Politicians make the descisions to either favour private cars, or public transportation. In my view, the problem is societal and it is up to politicians to repair damage to the society caused by for example private car ownership – not industrialists, whose primary motivator is pure greed. Greed rarely makes the society better.

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          • Rautakyy, if your ‘country’ stretched from the west coast of Ireland to well past the mid point of Kazakhstan, from the pole to Yemen and dozens of geographies within, perhaps you might grasp why the notion of ‘public transit’ rather than independent vehicles is simply a non starter. Because much of the electorate lives in cities, this idea you forward has legs and influences many politicians and has already cost the public triple digit billions to implement in a very small region by comparison, but for anyone who grasps the scope, challenge, and necessary productivity of the country outside of these urban environs on which none within them could otherwise survive, the need for green independent transportation is both obvious and fundamental. Hence, the need for long range economically feasible non carbon based and safe EVs… not just for people but for the economy to work. And EVs need to replace every other form of transportation, too, like air and sea traffic.

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          • tildeb, this post was not about EVs or Musk or Tesla. It is about the effect the melting of the Artic Ice has/will have on the Earth. While other factors may enter in, they are not the subject of this particular post. Both you and rautakyy have detoured away from the core topic.

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          • An interesting article on the coming year, which helps to explain how and why carbon emissions are driving us into unchartered climate territory and why polar and glacial ice are simply canaries in the well known coal mine that are themselves feedback loops to the kind of problems other commentators have mentioned. I mention Musk only in response to rautakky arguing for more government intervention as if these entities were ‘leaders’ when they clearly are not. My comment relates to lead, follow, or get out of the way. This explains what they need to do is put our nations on a war footing to implement energy transition now, that they should be the ‘followers’ of people who have actually led the charge for decades and have successfully brought renewables to bear NOW.

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          • Comment edited for length and topic.

            All in all I agree with you, that we need to change the energy sources of our transport and ultimately everything to sustainable ones. I also agree, that in current economic culture it will most likely come through the self interrests of the consumer and the Capitalists, but I am worried, that is too slow of a process and much will be lost before the world is saved. We as a humanity do need to grow up and become motivated not just out of short term self interrest, but also by our empathy and compassion to others, future generations and the living nature as a whole.

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  5. Why ice? Why is the loss of ice a centrally important to causing climate change?

    Two reasons: water and air.

    The southern pole drives the engine of ocean currents because of temperature differences. Both poles drive the engine of air currents because of temperature differences. Affect the temperature of the atmosphere, affect the temperatures of the poles. Reduce the ice because of warmer air (I don’t know what the difference is at the South Pole but in the far north atmospheric temperature is increasing 7 times faster than at the equator), reduce the engines. Reduce the engines, alter climate patterns. Alter climate patterns, change the weather patterns. Change the weather patterns, create chaos for humanity. Welcome to the next 75 years.

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  6. This is a worldwide problem, snd needs a worldwide solution. Any nation that opts out of getting rid of fossil fuels (almost every nation on Earth! right now) has to be called on an international carpet.
    We need a true world government, and to do that WE THE PEOPLE need to be the leaders. The United Nations is trying, but they don’t have real power. Our leaders, elected or self-appointed, cannot be relied upon for real action. We all know it is the wealthy who are runming and ruining our world. WE THE PEOPLE must take over, or humanity is facing extinction, along with ost other dpecies of life on this world.

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    • I fear that any kind of world government, with any real power, will be resisted by those currently in power, because it means sharing the power that they wanted for themselves in the first place. If we want a world government, with the power to compel countries to behave, then we must act and demand it, quite possibly with force.

      Frankly, people are too apathetic – busying themselves with meaningless in their lives – to be concerned about how to organize ourselves to protect the future of our planet and our species.

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      • Umm… I suspect China and Russia and other nuclear powers might have a thing or two to say about this idea, not to mention almost every country in the world. Other than that, humanity is famous for giving up independent power and getting along. And working cooperatively for a shared goal.

        Seriously though, economic self interest will play the deciding role. When non carbon energy is cheaper, safer, more secure, and easily created on the ground by simple means, things will change. It’s like getting a very heavy rock at a higher elevation positioned and then moved to start coming downhill. Once that is done, the rest takes care of itself. And we’re almost at that tipping point with renewables so there’s certainly room for optimism. That’s why it’s such a shame – if nor criminally stupid – that the Biden policy funding the positioning of that rock on a gigantic scale is being replaced in headlines and public outrage by the utter insanity of pushing reality-denying orthodoxies to please the radical ideologues at the fringe of the party while empowering those in opposition to that rock’s positioning (for reasons of greed and stupidity and equivalent reality denial) with plenty of ammunition to divert many of us from doing what’s needed, namely, supporting the implementation of the green energy revolution. When your energy supply is both endless and free, there is a decided economic advantage to use it versus paying a premium price to the worst of humanity for a malignant product used to power our necessary energy system.

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      • Abd that is the point, isn’t it? If we let “regional” governments exist, we will get regional responses to fighting climate disasters, and the earth will lose… Or should I say humanity will lose. In the long run the Earth will win without us around.

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    • HA! True enough. Thing is … if the wars across the globe continue to prolificate, that scenario just might come close to enactment.

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      • Exept, that wars actually have the negative effect of increasing population growth. Unless we are talking about the global nuclear holocaust, in wich case we might be talking about taking the rest of life forms with us in our collective suiside, like the bastards we are…

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        • Question, rautakyy … if there were multiple wars around the globe (I’m not talking “skirmishes”) to the extent that the death count became exorbitant, how would/could the population increase?

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          • Well, look at the two world wars. Devastation and loss of human life on an industrial scale, artillery barrages killing tens of thousands in matter of hours, carpet bombing and even systematic annihilation of entire ethnic groups, but the world population growing exponentially at the same time and especially when the conflict eased even a bit.

            When people are happy and complacent, like in the Nordic countries today, they are likely to plan pregnancies and families ahead. If they know they can enjoy pensions and the society will take care of them in their olden days, that they can rely on healthcare to keep them in good condition for long and they have easy access to birth controll, people are less likely to have as many, if indeed any children. In crisis areas birth rates are high and populations grow despite infant deaths and violence.

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  8. A compelling presentation indeed, Nan. (It worked for me by scrolling down)
    I live in one of the flattest parts of England, not that far (25 miles) from the East Coast. In the last 12 years we have already seen significant coastal erosion that has caused houses to fall into the sea.

    The current prediction is that the sea might completely flood the area within 100 years, and could also threaten London, causing the evacuation of over 8 million people.
    Perhaps Earth could best survive without humans? We have ruined a wonderful planet.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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