[BlisteredWhippet]

Endgame alert....

[Ayame]

Yes

120 million chinese screwed by global warming

The river that gave birth to their civilisation is about to dwindle. The Ganges is also going to have problems.

[Zardoz]

The Chinese are heading full-throttle into a cataclysm of biblical proportions. This is just one of the many factors that will contribute to it.

It's just a matter of time.

[coyote]

As posted by leanan:

An ancient ice shelf has cracked off northern Ellesmere Island, creating an enormous 66-square-kilometre ice island and leaving a trail of icy blocks in its wake.
...The breakup was so powerful, earthquake monitors 250 kilometres away picked up the tremors as the 3,000- to 4,500-year-old shelf tore away from its fjord on Ellesmere.
The Ayles ice shelf was one of six ice shelves left in Canada, remnants of a vast icy fringe that used to cover the top end of Ellesmere.

Apparently this occurred 16 months ago -- they just didn't tell us about it. 3,000-4,500 years old. But this is the part that bugs me:

The ice island is about 37 metres thick and measures roughly 15 kilometres by five kilometres. That's the size of a small city, or larger than 11,000 football fields. The island is now stuck in winter ice, but the researchers say it is only a matter of time before it is freed and floats away. They say the ice island could become a potential hazard to navigation and oil and gas extraction if it sails south toward the Beaufort Sea.

Montreal Gazette

"A hazard to oil and gas extraction"? Is this really the relevant way to think of this? Is it really the ice shelf that is the hazard? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say: "oil and gas extraction is a hazard to the ice shelves"?

I recall being shocked silly the first time I read a news story about venture capitalists slavering at the thought of new hydrocarbon fields being opened up by melting ice (caused by the burning of hydrocarbons). The concern here is more subtle, but still an expression of the same fundamental belief: That regardless of the scary shit that's happening, we're still damn well entitled to our energy, and the energy companies are still damn well entitled to their profits, no matter how many we and they kill.

I think I have an idea how bad peak oil is going to be, for me as well as humanity at large. But really, isn't it a necessary lesson? Don't we need a really good smack in the face? Be sent to stand in the corner for a while? Don't we, as the man said, have it coming to us? If that ice island takes out a few platforms, or a few dozen, isn't it just poetic justice?

In miniature, of course. Because what's headed our way is a level of natural-law justice I think we can all refer to as 'heavy handed.'

This wasn't the only source to stress this point about the oil platforms:

Copland says the massive ice island could prove dangerous in the spring for oil platforms that are scattered in its path.

Gods help me, but part of me -- a big part -- is starting to say, "Good."

[AnniCat]

heh ...I was just about to email that article to you with almost the exact same commentary.

[NEOPO]

Remember what else occurred 16 months ago?
Might there be a connection.

Yeah we are being "educated" on the effect but not the fact that we are the cause of it......stupid ice shelf......
At this "educated" point how many people believe?
How many care?

[seldom_seen]

I'm rooting for the iceberg. I hope it takes out a whole bunch of shit.

[Cobra_Strike]

Bwhahahahaha!!! OMFG is that a big block of ice! Will be cool to see from space as it pwns the rigs.

[Cabrone]

I recall being shocked silly the first time I read a news story about venture capitalists slavering at the thought of new hydrocarbon fields being opened up by melting ice (caused by the burning of hydrocarbons).

Surely you mean vulture capitalists, not venture capitalists.

[shakespear1]

Here you can see some images

Link

[Revi]

This thing started to crack up in 2002, and is now floating away. Well... It's another little example of how things are changing. I wonder what will happen next? Here's a pic or two from 2003 of the Ward Hunt Ice shelf:

Link

[TheTurtle]

I just edited the previous two posts to reduce the extremely long urls. Could everyone please use the url button (4th button from the left on the second line of the toolbar) to post links in order to keep page width reasonable.

Thanks.

[vision-master]

link to image

[coyote]

There it is, floating away.

Looks small in the pic, but that's just because it's next to that guy's finger. That thing is a third bigger than the island of Manhattan. And thick! Could take years to melt away.

[coyote]

For those wanting to match the name with the pics posted... here they are, the six (no, five now) remaining ice shelves of Ellesmere Island:

BioOne Journal

Ayles (e) is the one that is gone. Ward Hunt, the really big one (b), is the one that's breaking up. You can see the big crack going right through the middle of it, the one that suddenly drained the freshwater epishelf lake the ice shelf had been damming, with its unique ecosystem, and dumped it into the ocean.

[coyote]

A better view of that:

[Laughs_Last]

This happened in Canada. That means it's their problem.

[Cobra_Strike]

Looking at the images...its stunning. Huge barely does justice to something that size.

[EndOfGrowth]

Not to worry, we'll just tow it to land and melt it down for mineral water