Yet again, another note that I wrote on my Facebook. Enjoy! :)
It could not be more important at this point in time for not only Americans, but people across the world to realize that we are in dire need of more environmentally friendly technologies. Industrial plants, combustion engines, and many other forms of pollution are destroying our environment. We're pushing our planet to the extreme limits. This will without a doubt result in extreme changes in climate and it will change the lives of humans for generations to come. For every action, there is an equal an opposite reaction. Recently, the worlds largest carbon sink - something that absorbs and stores vast amounts of carbon - reached it's saturation point. That carbon sink was Antarctica's Southern Ocean and it accounted for approximately 15 percent of the volume of all combined carbon sinks. Just so you know, carbon sinks play a vitally important role in helping to absorb excess carbon created by humans.
"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the world's oceans have absorbed about a quarter of the 500 gigatons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by humans," Chris Rapley of the British Antarctic Survey said in a statement. (CNN.com - http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/05/17/climate.ocean.reut/)
In response to this, ice has began to melt faster, which has become alarmingly apparent in places such as Greenland, in which a new island of ice has formed. If all Greenland's ice were to melt, sea levels would rise by 23 feet. Now imagine the Arctic and Antarctic as well. Yet that's just the ice! If we continue to pollute as we do, the ozone layer will be depleted, allowing more UV rays to reach the surface of our planet, only furthering our global warming problem. Not to mention the effects that will have on microclimates and ecosystems such as the very delicate rainforests in Africa and South America. Are you beginning to understand the importance of our actions today with the environment? The decisions we make in the next couple of years regarding the environment are vitally important to how our future will play out.
So what can we do to avert being entirely screwed? First off, governments across the world will have to step in and impose harsh punishments on businesses that do not abide by a rigorous "Green" code. In addition, they will need to begin circulating propaganda and running ad campaigns in an effort to muster civilian support for the environment and to help spark grass roots movements, which can be very powerful en masse. Once we get everyone aware of the situation, change can begin to take place. We must begin instituting alternative-fuel cars, building solar panels, shutting down coal plants, constructing nuclear facilities if need be! Further research should be done on nuclear fusion technology and grants awarded to successful biomimics. The next decade and the choices we make in it will determine the fate of our children, our childrens children, and our childrens childrens children.
As for the rest of the planet, I do not believe it can truly be destroyed. I believe that, as the Gaia Hypothesis states, that Earth functions like an organism and will adapt with time. The patterns are visible in the fabric of the past... all you have to do is look. Anyways, that's beside the point. If we wish to continue our benign relationship with Mother Nature, then we better start shaping up.
In the mean time, what can you do to help? Pick up your trash, recycle, try to minimize your time driving, ride your bike when you can, turn off your lights when you aren't using them, etc. You've probably heard it all before. But believe me, it's true! Do it!
I sincerly hope America will wake up to this problem. We can afford to deny it no longer. Some will try to hope that nothing too bad will happen, but as Founding Father Patrick Henry once said, "It is natural for men to endulge in the illusions of hope...Having ears, hear not, having eyes, see not..."
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"The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph," Thomas Paine
I agree that cleaning up the environment is an important issue that is long overdue. However, I rarely see anything about trying to reduce the human population explosion. Technology can't keep up with the human population growth - we need to slow the human population growth.
I am not opposed to a moderate environmentalist policy. I will not move into a mud hut and eat beans and bugs to accomodate the green aristocracy.
This is a self-correcting problem. The population will decline if the world gets dirty enough. If the population declines, pollution will decline, although it may not be a pleasant experience. Our pollution of this planet will not turn it into a giant cinder. That will happen when the sun explodes.
I guess you figure you'll be in the part of the population that remains.....
US Marine vet Vietnam 4/68 - 8/69 5th District, NJ
Nobody is getting out of this show alive.
Aside from that, population reduction need require not so much death, as less birth.
While you're here discussing the impact of a growing population on the environment, some people are over on this forum topic discussing the merits of extending life up to 150 years! Someone better get over there and help out. As long as we merely extend the lives of those that leave a small carbon footprint, its all right with me.
Delegate Phil
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
I suppose your list would not include Mr.Gore, or several other green aristocrats then, would it.
supermandan550
Just noticed you indicated melting of the arctic cap as a source of flooding. 99% of it is floating, and will have no effect on sea levels.
Next time you have a drink with ice in it, see if the glass gets more full as the ice melts. Arctic ice is already displacing the amount of water it would melt into.
You forgot Greenland! Is that floating? Of course, land floats on water didn't ya know!
I believe the figures are actually 22 feet if all of Greenland's ice melts. The amount that gets thawed every year has been constantly expanding.
And as for Arctic ice, it reduced the % of salt in the ocean. It is widely accepted by oceanographers that desalinization of the Atlantic would slow and eventually stop the Gulf Stream. Thats the ocean current that keeps Europe warm at such high latitudes. This is why it is called global climate CHANGE. Europe would enter a mini ice age, teh rest of us would burn or drown or be lifted out of our homes by wind. I like skiing, so I think I'll move to northern Italy. It should be getting plenty of snow by the time I retire.
When Greenland was first discovered, it was green. ie. no ice.
I have no idea if anyone has stated that the ocean levels changed from that period.
Browncoats Unite!
Wow...did you graduate from High School? "Greenland", as it was named by the vikings, was no named to attract colonists. Is Iceland covered by ice?
Please make sure you know what you are saying next time. My time is too precious to be replying to too many dumb comments.
Greenland was so named because of the green and fertile fields on which to raise their livestock. That is why the Vikings settled there. Their downfall was with the Little Ice Age. They refused to learn from the local inhabitants how to adjust and therfore died off.
This is a friendly site with friendly discussion, do you have to make your statements sound so "correcting"? It looks twice as bad when you speak that way to someone and you are wrong. Were all here for the same end purpose, let's keep it friendly.
There is no absolute proof that the naming of Greenland was to help attract settlers, but it is a widely accepted theory that it was part of the influence of the naming of the island. You are right about the little ice age / medieval warm period; when the Vikings first settled it was warmer and greener, but the statement that there was no ice was totally wrong.
Sorry for sounding unfriendly; blatant lies make me testy. I will try harder not to get exasperated in the future.
No, JFK, I didn't forget Greenland, just pointing out the error about the rest of the arctic cap. This kind of misrepresentation does nothing to improve credibility.
When in trouble, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
The shrill continue to lead the way. Hopeless.
The extreme north of Greenland, Peary Land, is not covered by an ice sheet, because the air there is too dry to produce snow, which is essential in the production and maintenance of an ice sheet. If the Greenland ice sheet were to completely melt away, sea levels would rise more than 7 m (23 ft)[3] and Greenland would most likely become an archipelago.
Between 1989 and 1993, U.S. and European climate researchers drilled into the summit of Greenland's ice sheet, obtaining a pair of two-mile (3.2 km) long ice cores. Analysis of the layering and chemical composition of the cores has provided a revolutionary new record of climate change in the Northern Hemisphere going back about 100,000 years and illustrated that the world's weather and temperature have often shifted rapidly from one seemingly stable state to another, with worldwide consequences.[4] The glaciers of Greenland are also contributing to global sea level rise at a faster rate than was previously believed.[5] In February 2024, researchers reported that Greenland's glaciers are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago. According to satellite gravity measurements, the annual loss was estimated at 216 km³/yr (52 cubic miles per year) by 2024. Between 1991 and 2024, monitoring of the weather at one location (Swiss Camp) found that the average winter temperature had risen almost 6°C (approx. 10°F).[6] Other research has shown that higher snowfalls from the North Atlantic oscillation caused the interior of the ice cap to thicken by an average of 6 cm/yr between 1994 and 2024.[7]
However, the July 2024 issue of Science Magazine reported that the oldest DNA ever recovered shows a much warmer planet in relatively recent geological times: "Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed. DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest. That view contrasts sharply with the prevailing one that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science. The existence of those DNA samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 °C (1 °F) in the winter. They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 °C (9 °F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away."[8]
Browncoats Unite!