The ice packs of the world hold 65 to 70 meters of ocean depth if melted. Thats over 200 feet, bye bye to much of the coastal cities of the world, maybe all of Florida and the current gulf coast. The rate of ice melt is quickening, Glacier Park is almost out of ice, the Arctic was crossed this summer for the first time by a small sail boat, Greenland the last 2 years developed many rivers as big as the Missouri and Rhine as water gushed through canyons carved through blue million year old ice.
We should be doing more to stem the rate of greenhouse gas caused ice melt. Plants and animals and whole eco-systems depend on ice, on cool water, with ice floating in it.
The thing that has me concerned is that it doesn’t take anything as dramatic as this to obliterate civilisation as we know it. Our narcissism as a species and our love of story-telling demands something spectacular to be our demise, when actually we could just wake up dead one morning. Runaway plague.
ReplyDeleteA couple of degrees either way in median temperature and whole staples fail which then triggers other stresses and our civilisation comes down like a house of cards.
I think humanity could survive a great melt… but it wouldn’t be the humanity we know. The work of countless generations in advancing enlightenment and culture would all be for naught. It’s not losing the world I fear, it’s losing what we have built up till now.
The Right fears it too, the difference is they try to wish it away and take refuge in the 1% doubt versus the 99% certain.
If I could pin down the failure of Right-wing denialist ideology to one thing… I wouldn’t even say “greed”. I would say “failure of imagination”. Failure to see something further than the other end of the street. Failure to see themselves in the suffering of others and thereby failure to have empathy. Failure to imagine the lives of our children and their children could ever be different to ours.
Magpie;
DeleteThanks for your comment and I suggest your point about a temperature change of a couple of degrees is a powerful one we can all easily relate to.
I often hear from deniers that if there is a small temperature rise which they don't believe, but if there is it won't matter, a few degrees so what. I point out that all animal life, and many plants, survive in such a narrow band. A fever of only a few degrees can kill people in an hour, the same for all animals. This warming is like a fever, outside of that narrow band life is at risk. Of course higher atmospheric temperatures are not a fever, we can hide inside or lay in the shade, but the point is it puts everything at stress. Corn produces less in high heat no matter if you can keep the roots wet, cattle gain weight slower too. When the earth has a fever, many things get sick.