Global Warming - 2 German cargo ships pass through 'Arctic Passage'

[DaveinOlyWA]

and i am not saying the sky will be upon us tomorrow. if it does it does. too late to stop that. but we can do things now that might help...

i drive an EV because it reduces carbon...now how much...well we all know, not much. the 10,000 miles i have driven have probably save a few tons from being added. but every little bit helps and that is what i preach and the sooner the better.

went to a wedding a few weeks ago. garden affair and they had this old car sitting out back in the very early stages of restoration. here is my Son already a proponent of bio fuels.

ya, like i said, never to early or too late to get em started in the right direction

[hill]

Originally Posted by efusco

It doesn't "happen all the time" While 2 years ago the first ice breaker made it through that particular passage this is the first time I've heard of any commercial freighter being able to make it through.

Not being alarmist, but you're a fool if you don't consider this significant and worthy of further study and evaluation. I don't think anyone is sure what it means or what the future holds. And of course it'll freeze again...that's not the point...the point is that it's never melted to this degree before allowing a navigable passage.

I understand there area few entrepreneurs that have already purchased property in hopes of developing it, along what may soon become shipping routes. Gawd ... not more McDonalds & Arco stations.

[Jimmie84]

Originally Posted by dogfriend

Yep, we are all going to die. The issue is whether our offspring (and their offspring, and so on) are going to live. You and I won't be around to see it, but if you care about humanity, it might concern you to see rapid and substantial changes in our environment.

There is a much higher chance of an Asteroid, Coronal Mass Ejection, Or maybe a super Volcano that could wipe out human life as we know it.

[dogfriend]

Originally Posted by Jimmie84

There is a much higher chance of an Asteroid, Coronal Mass Ejection, Or maybe a super Volcano that could wipe out human life as we know it.

How much higher?

We have no control over any of those 3, but we can slow down the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere if we choose to do so.

[oxnardprof]

Originally Posted by Jimmie84

There is a much higher chance of an Asteroid, Coronal Mass Ejection, Or maybe a super Volcano that could wipe out human life as we know it.

I don't know what evidence you use to say that. Climate change is real, and it will certainly affect human life adversely. The more we delay, the greater the difficulty in reducing adverse affects.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by DaveinOlyWA

and i am not saying the sky will be upon us tomorrow.

The possibility of a nasty solar or extra solar event could be in 5 mins, 5 years, 500,000 years, etc. The possibility of greenhouse gas effects from non-CFC gasses - the gasses we went to so we could save the ozone layer - are very real and immediate

As far as the methane clathrates I find them to be fascinating complex compounds, an example of how nature proves it is the ultimate engineer

The impact of cooling/warming trends, should not be discounted. Neither should the impact of growing population; that is, a growing population that wants access to the same standard of living that we appear to take for granted in the West

I firmly believe in better efficiency, as everyone benefits in the long run. I also believe in a level playing field, but that is a stickier topic

How arrogant are we to tell other nations, such as India and China, what to do? It's natural for people in those nations to want/desire the same standard of living that we have.

Nations like India and China will attempt to provide their citizens with a much increased standard of living. That comes at the expense of increased consumer consumption. Like it or not, if we add 2 billion more people onto a Western lifestyle, there WILL be dramatic change both locally and globally

Originally Posted by hill

I understand there area few entrepreneurs that have already purchased property in hopes of developing it, along what may soon become shipping routs. Gawd ... not more McDonalds & Arco stations.

Actually, I was thinking more of floating Tim Horton's. The German ship captain ordering for his crew:

"Ya, we want .... how you say? Tirty double-double's skinny, ten double-doubles regular, Casper he want de regular Timmies coffee with 2 of each, and a box of fifty Timbits. Oh, do you take Visa?"

Originally Posted by Jimmie84

There is a much higher chance of an Asteroid, Coronal Mass Ejection, Or maybe a super Volcano that could wipe out human life as we know it.

Unfortunately, there is geologic evidence of all the above, which came very close to wiping the slate clean

The asteroid impact in the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago is thought to have been responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs. Or perhaps not. This isn't an exact science, and nobody is 100% certain of anything

We had a fairly "normal" sized CME back in 1859, usually named after the British astronomer who observed it: Richard Carrington. The "high tech" infrastructure of the day, telegraph, was knocked out. Sparks flew off the equipment, the wires glowed red hot. There were even anecdotal reports of rail lines glowing red hot, from the induced geomagnetic current

Normal geomagnetic current can induce current into long pipelines. The Alaska pipeline has odd erosion issues as a result, so do long pipelines in Scandinavian countries and Siberia.

A small CME event knocked out Hydro Quebec in 1989, and caused damage to other utilities

Who cares? Anyone living on Earth!

As my interest and work has been "hard" infrastructure for most of my career, it's disturbing to realize that nothing has been done to protect our infrastructure from a CME

I realize movies like "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage tend to portray a CME as something that wipes out all life on earth, that probably isn't the likely scenario. Most likely, the magnetosphere protects biological life from a typical CME, but our electronics are fried.

Without electricity, safe running water, a way to grow, harvest, and transport our food, we die from disease and starvation. Not a pretty scenario.

The super volcano, yes there are geological markers for such events. Not only would a super volcano, like the one potentially brewing under Yosemite, cause a Nuclear Winter outcome, but the acid rain resulting from such fallout would also wipe out our food crops.

The heavy ash deposits would also render most of our technology useless. So the end result of starvation, disease, social breakdown, is still pretty bad

Personally, I'm waiting for the Meteor Of Doom, but that is the kind of guy I am. I don't lose sleep over it

As far as environmental effects of man, we will find solutions as we will have no choice. Unless we condemn billions to live a Stone Age existence - and who the hell are WE to do that?? - we have to accept that people living in China, India, Africa, etc, can and SHOULD have access to the same standard of living that we do

That standard of living will come at a price. It's mutually beneficial for everybody to find a solution.

[notagreen]

the reality is slightly different from the spin

EU Referendum: A triumph for propaganda

Front page of The Independent today proclaims: "A triumph for man, a disaster for mankind", heralding the completion of what it claims to be "the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage."

"It is an epic moment," says the paper, "but also a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic." The picture caption reinforces the point, telling us: "No commercial vessel has ever successfully travelled the North-east Passage, a fabled Arctic Sea route that links the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific far more directly than the usual southerly cargo route."

And none of this is true. It could not be further from the truth – it is a complete and utter distortion, a fabrication, a lie. An Englishman's Castle sussed it, by the simple expedient of looking up Wikipedia

But there is much, much more to it than that. Writes Independent hack Tony Paterson, in Berlin, "It has been one of the elusive goals of seafaring nations almost since the beginnings of waterborne trade, but for nearly 500 years the idea has been dismissed as an impossible dream. Now, as a result of global warming, the dream is about to come true."

For the truth (Wikipedia apart), let us see what the Russians say about this "impossible dream". More correctly known as the Northern Sea Route (NSR), they tell us that the NSR is Russia's main national transport line in the Arctic.

It has been commercially exploited since 1935 when four cargo motor ships passed through the route during a single navigation season. In 1936, warships of the Baltic Fleet successfully arrived in the Far East. Russia, we are told, has invested enormous material and human resources in exploring and equipping this route. Powerful icebreakers and icebreaking cargo ships have been constructed, navigational and hydrometeorological systems established. And furthermore, up until the end of the 80s, the Arctic transportation system was self-supporting. The volume of sea traffic reached 7 million tons in 1987.

The record tells us that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union - for reasons entirely related to ice conditions and entirely to do with the breakdown of the route infrastructure - shipping along the route diminished but, we learn, between 1993 - 1997 the volume of sea cargo along the NSR was still 150 - 200 thousand tons a year. A new post-Soviet peak was established in 1993 when 15 Russian ships with 210 thousand tons of transit goods passed along the route. Now, there are even tourist trips.

and a follow up about journalists regurgitating each others crap and how this was spun to give it an entirely fabricated British spin

EU Referendum: The turd eaters

[hyo silver]

Originally Posted by jayman

...Unfortunately, there is geologic evidence of all the above, which came very close to wiping the slate clean...The asteroid impact in the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago is thought to have been responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs...It's mutually beneficial for everybody to find a solution.

No, having such evidence is quite fortunate. We know that mass extinctions have happened before and will happen again. It's our own stupidity and greed that's the problem. We alone have the intelligence and foresight to do something about many impending disasters, but sadly, we've been duped into thinking next quarter's financial results are more important.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by notagreen

and a follow up about journalists regurgitating each others crap and how this was spun to give it an entirely fabricated British spin

Well, consider the Canadian government established the Port Of Churchill, in northern Manitoba, primarily to ship grain to the former USSR

Port of Churchill

The Russians are interested in having direct sea shipments to their port in Murmansk, as there is tremendous advantage (Time, cost, etc) to avoiding shipping routes along the equator.

During the cold war, shipping in the Arctic regions was routine. There were DEW radar stations every 50-100 miles apart, stretching from ALaska across the North West Territories.

Each site had upwards of 2 million US gallons of DFA (Diesel Fuel Arctic) storage, and the only way to replenish the DFA was routine summer shipments by barge. There was a brief 2-4 month window each year during the summer, when it was possible to barge in the fuel and needed heavy equipment

Now with extensive resource extraction in the Canadian Arctic (Diamonds, gold, oil, methane clathrates, etc) there will be more push on to develop more shipping routes. A concern has been raised in that Canadians have pretty much forgotten the existence of the Arctic. There are obvious concerns to soverignty and security

Battle for the Arctic - Doc Zone | CBC-TV

Like a lot of things, ignoring a situation does NOT make it go away

Originally Posted by hyo silver

We alone have the intelligence and foresight to do something about many impending disasters, but sadly, we've been duped into thinking next quarter's financial results are more important.

I agree we shouldn't be fixated on the quarterly results. However, our ability to deal with most natural, solar, and extrasolar events is VERY limited. With the exception of man-made problems, which are hard enough to solve, we really do toot our own horn too much in how we imagine we could deal with a solar, or especially an extrasolar event

Eg: until the Cold War, we didn't know about Gamma Ray Pulse events occurring outside our solar system. Detection satellites were designed to look for hidden, unannounced nuclear weapon tests.

Funnily enough, the detectors started picking up frequent gamma ray events. They were all around us, far out into space. So, one more thing to worry about, getting fried by a gamma ray pulse from a nearby star

NOVA Online | Death Star | A Bad Day in the Milky Way

It would be best if we were quickly fried, with as little panic and social collapse as possible. However, if we were condemned to massive starvation and chaos, finding a quick way to end things would be preferable

[Jimmie84]

Originally Posted by hyo silver

No, having such evidence is quite fortunate. We know that mass extinctions have happened before and will happen again. It's our own stupidity and greed that's the problem. We alone have the intelligence and foresight to do something about many impending disasters, but sadly, we've been duped into thinking next quarter's financial results are more important.

Really? I'm having a very difficult time trying to understand what you're trying to say.....

Do you mean hook up a cable to the space shuttle, Fly it around Mars and in hopes if using that cable to pull earth out of the line of a CME event? You can't stop disasters from happening. Hurricanes will always destroy coastlines, Tornadoes will always rip up the midwest, Lightning will cntinue to cause fires in the mountains from the rockies west, Snow storms will always happen.

When you start thinking we control things out of our hands, Your logic of thinking is very dense.