Ice caps doomed?

A critical meltdown of ice sheets and severe sea level rise could be inevitable because of global warming, the world's scientists are preparing to warn their governments. New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss "may no longer be avoided" because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Link

Seems like we have left it a little too late in our efforts to prevent the melting of the ice caps.

The melting process could take centuries, but increased warming caused by a failure to cut emissions would accelerate the ice sheets' demise, and give nations less time to adapt to the consequences.

Areas such as the Maldives would be swamped and low-lying countries such as the Netherlands and Bangladesh, as well as coastal cities including London, New York and Tokyo, would face critical flooding.

We need to act now, if not, sea levels could rise up to 6 meters which would swamp coastal cities such as New York, London and Tokyo and literally drown low lying countries such like Bangladesh and the Netherlands.
not only this but such huge amounts of fresh water being dumped into the sea could cause the Atlantic current to cease and could easily throw the Northern hemisphere into an ice age.
this has happened before when the melt water from the last ice age in Northern America flooded into the sea and threw Europe into an ice age for another 1000 years. This event took only months.

Well, we had better get to work!
You call your congressman, and I'll get onto my state premier, good 'ol Mr. Bracks.

Uhh . . . does anyone actually expect any half-decent action to be taken before this happens? Because I suuuure don't. It's like the global warming thing (which caused this). The only preventative measures that were taken was the instigation of a bit of faulty legislation that limited the amount of toxins cars and some factories could spew out. And I recently read an article in a 1972 Nat Geo that said if action was not be taken in the next 5 or so years, there would be dire consequences, which just shows that people were aware of this over 35 years ago.

I believe there will be no action taken by the governments responsible that will properly reduce the consequences of what is to come. It just isn't in their interests, and will cost too much money.

I saw this on 60 Minutes last night,with the extent of the melting of the caps.

Its too late to stop it and its going to get a helluva lot worse before it gets any better,because like watch_the_rocks stated above,nothing is going to be done.

They have know about it for ages and like the first reports of smoking causing lung cancer,where to prolong it,they had adverts that said "More Doctors smoke Camel" to stall and make as much profit as they could,before it was proven beyond a doubt.As seen in the An Inconvenient Truth video.

of cause, no one except the minority of semi-intelligent people posted in the various governments around the world will even bother doing anything but the minimum. though there is the strange thing, why try to preserve an already fragile economy by not investing in clean energy, vehicle fuel and so forth when not doing so can and most likely will, in the not to distant future, not only destroy it but make its existence pointless and we will be thrown back into the stone age. (not that i have any personal objections about going back into the stone age my self)

Originally posted by funny_pom
though there is the strange thing, why try to preserve an already fragile economy by not investing in clean energy, vehicle fuel and so forth when not doing so can and most likely will, in the not to distant future, not only destroy it but make its existence pointless and we will be thrown back into the stone age.

Yes I agree it doesn`t make sense if money is all that matters to them.

Maybe its more than that then,I have on ats read that some groups (elites) work toward or have goals of reducing the worlds population dramatically,maybe this is a way to do so,without totally destroying it.
I`m not saying I believe this to be the truth of the matter,but I have wondered.

I found this interesting from a link in an members short story.

And The Population Control Agenda

Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

The real motivation behind efforts to block utilization of standard public health measures to control further spread of the HIV epidemic was "population control." That was not an easy concept for me to acknowledge, despite the fact that I had long recognized that the twentieth century has been the bloodiest hundred-year period in all recorded human history.

Strange and desperate actions of a world falling apart. such things as AIDS as populatiuon control is scary, what if it wipes out humanity altogether?

IMHO we have messed up big time in terms of population and there is no way back except genocide and mass sterilization, both of which wont work. in fact, an sudden and immediate ice age brought on by say, several nuclear ICBM's launched over the Antarctic ice shelves and into Greenland for some reason, would lower the worlds population in a way that humans wouldn't blame them selves for a last ditch effort to quell the largely increasing populations, large populations in small areas would be lessened and thus ending our difficulties and maybe it would make us think thing through.

then again it could do the first few things, mass death, nuclear winter, destruction of civilisation. yet man may not learn anything and start a conquest to claim all the liveible land, for civilisation at least, for their particular party and... well more death and genocide follows...

the point... we have marched into a valley and the road out is one where only the smartest will survive, yet that is only if the ignorant let them get there at all.
more clearly the population and pollution problems are unavoidable and the only people who can actually do anything about it have been silenced to the point where they can no longer make a difference

I think it's inevitable that low lying areas like Florida and many coast lines will be lost to the rising water, but really, our species will survive. We will adapt and move to higher ground, we'll change the way we live out of necessity so that we continue to exist in some way.

Most people don't seem to care about some island nation being inundated with water, and many have no regard for third world countries starving to death due to drought that wipes out their crops and make the land unlivable.

Death is a fact of life, and I think the rich nations will let it happen because they just don't care.

Only profit will determine our future.:shk:

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks


Uhh . . . does anyone actually expect any half-decent action to be taken before this happens? Because I suuuure don't. It's like the global warming thing (which caused this). The only preventative measures that were taken was the instigation of a bit of faulty legislation that limited the amount of toxins cars and some factories could spew out. And I recently read an article in a 1972 Nat Geo that said if action was not be taken in the next 5 or so years, there would be dire consequences, which just shows that people were aware of this over 35 years ago.

I believe there will be no action taken by the governments responsible that will properly reduce the consequences of what is to come. It just isn't in their interests, and will cost too much money.

You see, that's the problem. Our governments cannot claim ignorance. The government's of this world knew about the dire consequences of CO2 and other green house gases a long, long time ago. However, their allegiance to their money and way of life is on a higher scale than the people who gave everything to them are.

It's probably guaranteed to be too late to stop global warming by now, well that is my opinion, but we should try to slow it down. For a start lets replace all coal fired power plants with nuclear and geothermal ones. Now a lot of people don't like nuclear power, and for some reason would rather live near a coal power plant than a nuclear one, even with improved technology since Chernobyl, after all Chernobyl went wrong when they decided to do a dangerous test.

How much longer are they going to do practically nothing about this anyway? When it comes to road travel in Britain, without everything that is above about 5 metres in altitude, a lot of roads would be flooded and inaccessible. For example, the road that goes up to Fort William and Ben Nevis is pretty much at sea level, next to a sea level Loch. Not to mention that London would be pretty much gone. It would be a disaster, and the one time we have been able to stop a natural disaster, we have done nothing about it.

Apex, you probably are correct. It has been my contention for quite some time that the damage, as far a global warming is concerned, has already been done. The cause of it? Well, I am increasingly coming to the opinion that it is not any one specific thing. Do I think humanity's actions are a contributing factor? You damn betcha I do!!

However,I also think that part of it may also be cyclical. Now, if one considers that the earth went through an ice age, then common sense tells us that it apparently has went through a warming stage as well. The main question is, why is it going through a warming stage currently?


I can understand it warming up from sub zero temperatures, but I can't understand why it would continue to warm when there was a climatic balance. There is a current theory that the earth is going to warm offf, and then cool relatively quickly and hurtle us into a mini- ice age like what was experienced in the 1400s. Some Chinese scientists are predicting that this could happen as early as 2030.

Regardless of what occurs, it doesn't look very promising for the welfare of humanity. It seems that the ecosystem has pretty much determined to follow through whatever course it is on.

global warming is a farce and you have been duped

the psychology of which

is a report has been produced which people see as being true because of the source when in fact there are many dissenting scientists and meteorologists yet they do not have an agenda so they do not gather and try to make money off the good intentions of people ( like enviormentalists) off bolognia

the real reason is to control the watter supply in the coming years when the veil of the gov't transparency and lies is oncovered so as to keep people under control and maintain power structure, this is just one of the many systems of control that will need to be inplace, IMO in respect to maslow's hierarchy of needs, if u restrict something people need to live then hell they will give up what ever rights they need 2, btw HAARP is another instrument for control

also they get people to believe that they are responsible for it, so they feel guilty and accept the situation, so as not to interfere with free will either

[edit on 19-2-2007 by cpdaman]

And ^that^ coming from someone that cannot even spell 'water'? :shk:

If you want to participate in speculative conspiracy theory discussion, go to the Skunk Works forum.

well all i have to say is that humans will not knock the earth down. Since the industrial revolution, and before that also, we have been selfishly and ignorantly consuming the world for our own purpose. Now, nature is getting us back. the Earth will resume its balance in so many 1000's of years ice age or not. we have simply speeded up a process which is inevitable anyway. Humans have survived many ice ages and this one is equally as survivable. the only thing different about this one is that we all know its happening but we just cant be bothered preparing for it.
who cares about something that will happen 50 years in the future, as long as my profit is going up what does it matter.
though like i said before, a major climatic event such as an ice age will destroy the economy altogether, making all that mindless profit gaining that we have done will become pointless, it will infact make things worse by convincing us that the more money we have the safer we will be when such an event may occur.

i see this like "Oh well we're all gonna die any way but i might as well get rich in the process"

Originally posted by funny_pom
i see this like "Oh well we're all gonna die any way but i might as well get rich in the process"

I must admit I`m at fault with it also.

I could by a hybrid car

I could buy solar panels or stop using power altogether.But if its not going to be taken seriously,then why bother and waste your money?

Its with this same mentality our global leaders have also,The US is the leading contributer to green house gases as a country and by per head and what really annoys me on this is that America will more readily spend billions on a bogus war before spending likewise to reduce its emissions.

Check the ongoing cost of the war

If Leaders took this threat serious,I would at least expect them to stop immediately the manufacture of new fossil fuel vehicles and begin a phase out of the ones on the road now!, and giving a dead line for everyone of say 10 years to get into an environmentally friendly vehicle.With exception to industrial/commercial type equipment and vehicles until the technology is available to run them.

I would even go so far as to say,each country and every house should be self sufficient for power,using solar/wind what ever.Regardless of cost.

It costs,so I have heard about $22,000 Australian to have an average house fitted with solar panels,This should be compulsory to new homes built,with established homes being phased in over time.

But nothing is happening,they have stalled and stalled and will only do tiny amounts so`s to keep the public quelled in thinking they are doing whats necessary.

Well we have been through Ice Ages before, but then the Human population was much smaller than it is now. Moving small tribes out of harms way is one thing, but moving entire countries is another altogether. Even if we noticed we were descending into an ice age, we would still probably do nothing about it, and then we would be struggling through that.

all this casting the issue aside will hit us in the face one day.
first the ice caps melt away, then insane weather and ensuing ice age. then we will go back and think, "I wonder what would have happened had we acted...?"

Originally posted by cpdaman
is a report has been produced which people see as being true because of the source when in fact there are many dissenting scientists and meteorologists yet they do not have an agenda so they do not gather and try to make money off the good intentions of people ( like enviormentalists) off bolognia

[edit on 19-2-2007 by cpdaman]

Well, sure they have an agenda. To gain money from the big corporations that pay them to peddle theri "science."

It's perhaps worth pointing out that the Guardian article originally quoted at the start of this thread is factually inaccurate - indeed one could argue it is deliberately misleading.

This month the IPCC published a separate study on the science of climate change, which concluded that humans are "very likely" to be responsible for most of the recent warming, and that average temperatures would probably increase by 4C this century if emissions continue to rise. Even under its most optimistic scenario, based on a declining world population and a rapid switch to clean technology, temperatures are still likely to rise by 1.8C.

The SPM referred to here actually states that the best estimate for temp rises this century is 3c. It adds that it is 'highly unlikely' (though obviously not impossible) that temps will rise by less than 1.5c.

Don't believe anything you read in the media. Check the original sources.