Massive iceberg breaks away from Antarctica

Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 12 July 2017 23:14.

CNN, “Massive iceberg breaks away from Antarctica”, 12 July 2017:

It’s clear that global warming, caused largely by burning fossil fuels and agricultural practices, is contributing to the broader destabilization of Antarctica, said Eric Rignot, professor of Earth systems sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“This break-up signals that the ice shelf got too thin,” Rignot said in an email. “It got thinner because climate has been warming, over decades; the ice shelf will eventually collapse in the coming decades. This is absolutely related to climate warming. The ice shelf front has not calved this far back in 125 years (first seen by Carl Larsen in 1893) and Larsen C is on a course to collapse, very reminiscent of what happened to Larsen B in 2002.”

“This is yet another wake up call,” he said, “that Antarctica is on the rise and we should be concerned about what that means for future sea level.”

Tags: Environmentalism & Climate Change, Peak Oil, Pervasive Ecology

Comments:

Posted by Scientists "shell-shocked" by Greenland's ice melt on Fri, 04 Aug 2017 02:30 | #

Scientists described themselves as “shell-shocked” after what witnessing the cascading waterfalls of melting ice in Greenland this year.

NPR, “Al Gore Warns That Trump Is A ‘Distraction’ From The Issue Of Climate Change”, 2 Aug 2017:

As a climate change activist, former Vice President Al Gore is used to speaking in front of both hostile and friendly audiences. But there is one individual he has all but given up on.

“I have no illusions about the possibility of changing Donald Trump’s mind,” Gore says. “I think he has made it abundantly clear that he’s throwing his lot in with the climate deniers.”

[...]

Gore spoke with the president multiple times prior to Trump’s announcement about the Paris accord. Gore is now focused on building a bipartisan consensus to address the climate crisis.

[...]

Gore warns that climate change is not just an issue that affects future generations: “It’s happening to us now. This movie is designed to drive those points home, but also to make people aware that in the last decade, the solutions to the climate crisis have become available to us.

[...]

[The fossil fuel industry] financed a major cottage industry of climate denial with pseudoscientists who crank out these phony pseudoscientific reports. Their principal product is doubt. They know they don’t have to win the argument; they just have to create enough doubt to lead people to lose any sense of urgency about solving this crisis. They have made some headway. But again, because Mother Nature has a more persuasive voice than any of us, they’re losing this battle. The Paris agreement was truly a historic breakthrough, illustrating that all around the world, opinions are getting stronger and stronger in favor of solving the climate crisis. We’re the only country with a major conservative party wedded to provable idiocy on climate science.

On how technological advancements can help combat climate change.

[...]

Electricity from the sun and the wind is now in many regions much cheaper than electricity from dirty fossil fuels. Electric cars are becoming affordable. Batteries are coming down very quickly in cost and, coupled with renewable energy, will utterly transform the world’s energy systems. And along with sustainable agriculture and forestry, we now have a chance to use these tools to really solve the climate crisis in time to avoid the catastrophic consequences that would otherwise fall upon us.

Posted by No hurricane, New Orleans flooded anyway on Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:03 | #

Washinton Post

‘Nothing you can do’: It wasn’t even a hurricane this time, but New Orleans flooded anyway, 9 Aug 2017:

Officials say heavy rainfall Saturday overwhelmed pump stations in New Orleans. (Nola.com/The Times-Picayune via AP)

Panic and rough memories surfaced in New Orleans this week as residents faced a reminder of what can happen with heavy rains, even though U.S. taxpayers have spent nearly $15 billion rebuilding the city’s flood protections since 2005.

Posted by Occidental epistemological error on Sat, 19 Aug 2017 11:42 | #

Steps to an Ecology of Mind P. 495:

Last, there is the question of urgency. It is clear now too many people that there are many catastrophic dangers which have grown out of the Occidental errors of epistemology. These range from insecticides to pollution, to atomic fallout, to the possibility of melting the Antarctic ice cap. Above all, our fantastic compulsion to save individual lives has created the possibility of world famine in the immediate future.

Perhaps we have an even chance of getting through the next twenty years with no disaster more serious than the mere destruction of a nation or a group of nations. I believe that this massive aggregation of threats to man and his ecological systems arises out of errors in our habits of thought at deep and partly unconscious levels.

Posted by Houston, we have a problem. on Sun, 27 Aug 2017 20:53 | #

Daily Caller, “Harvey Puts Houston Underwater”, 28 Aug 2017:

Rescue workers along the Texas coast are continuing search and rescue operations as Hurricane Harvey continues to batter the Lone Star state with dozens of inches of rain.

The hurricane, which crashed into the Texas coast as a Category 4, is expected to continue to affect the region long into the week as the National Weather Service warns of “unprecedented” flood levels.

This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced. Follow orders from officials to ensure safety. #Harvey

Posted by Hurricane Harvey exposes White supremacy on Mon, 28 Aug 2017 05:18 | #

Just take any news event in the United States and its arbitrary trauma will expose the White supremacy of America - just look who is the Mayor of Houston, one of America’s largest and strategically most important cities: