Major ice-shelf loss for Canada

[Gregorian]

Source: BBC

The floating tongues of ice attached to Ellesmere Island, which have lasted for thousands of years, have seen almost a quarter of their cover break away.

"These changes are irreversible under the present climate."

Much of the area was lost during a warm period in the 1930s and 1940s.

Further loss of Arctic ice will see radiation absorbed by darker seawater and snow-free land, potentially warming the Earth's climate at an even faster rate than current observational data indicates.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7595441.stm

---

I'm not sure why I even post this. After all, who is going to alter their life? A CFH here, a Prius there. Meaningless.

There is only one answer. Living within the equilibrium of nature. That means going way back to a time when life was actually hard work. We've painted ourselves into a corner.

[desktop]

1. Actually it's not hard work, it's allowing smart people to lead and control

The earth will continue to warm, but if we want to keep the planet from going into a state of inhabitablity for the human race, we better get off fossil fuels as much and as fast as we can. We have the technology to make solar and wind power the dominant power through out the world. I'm afraid we will probably decimate life on earth before we finally let the smart rule. Let's all hope it will not be to late for the generations to come.

[bahrbearian]

4. You will have to pry my snomobile from my cold dead hands.

[ben_meyers]

2. Going way back to a time when life was actually hard work?

You mean a time like when "Much of the area was lost during a warm period in the 1930s and 1940s."

I don't think people are going to give up all the useless, unneeded crap they have aquired since the 30's and 40's.

[hogwyld]

3. Rec #5 for the end...

There is only one answer. Living within the equilibrium of nature. That means going way back to a time when life was actually hard work. We've painted ourselves into a corner.

Or going back to a time when the world's population was only a billion...

[Gregorian]

6. Thank you so much.

I no longer bring population up. Because I am so offended by those who argue that it isn't an issue, that I don't even invite it.

Population is THE issue. Of course it's an equation with two major variables. But the heavily weighted one is population at this point.

The melting in the earlier part of last century makes me wonder. I've often wondered how much damage military action has had. I think it's actually a major factor. I calculated a couple of years back that we had already used a billion gallons of fuel in Iraq.

I don't see any solutions. Obama could at least begin the process though.

[hogwyld]

12. Even though people want to ignore the elephant in the room

doesn't mean it won't make its presence known in due time. Whether one wants to admit it or not, it WILL be addressed, either voluntarily or not.

[GliderGuider]

13. Is this the Doomers' Corner? May I pull up a chair?

I just wanted to drop off a hearty "Amen!" I suspect we're going to see some massive changes on the population front sooner rather than later.

Population: The Elephant in the Room

[GliderGuider]

14. Heh. I even got Post #13 for that...

[hogwyld]

16. Yeah, us "Doomahs" can just sit here

while everyone else convinces themselves that tidal energy will save the planet from environmental catastrophe, carrying capacity, and loss of biodiversity. And don't even get me started on desertification and loss of fresh water...

[Codeine]

21. Some of us will try to solve our problems,

while others cry in the corner and wail to the Heavens. There are solutions to the very real difficulties we face, but the "We're all DOOOMED!" crowd is as useless as the warming denialist crowd.

[tama]

27. Simple solution: simplicity

Let's not try to "fix" the problems with new control freakish technofixes that will only create new problems in need of fixing, let's just stop doing what is causing the problems and take it easy.

[GliderGuider]

29. What an excellent idea!

The first rule of holes: "When you discover you're in one, stop digging!"

I suspect it applies to most of what we've been doing for the last 10,000 years, though. That makes the hole a bit deeper than most people realize, though.

[tama]

30. Yup

And what's the latest on Palin? ;-)

We shouldn't underestimate the difficulties in realizing larger wholes and interdependencies and then applying these realizations to particulars of life choises. Especially when "digging" is not independent from certain well established thought patterns embroidered allready in English language. Thinking beyond one's language is not impossible, but can be extremely difficult.

[Barrett808]

23. Hey Hogwyld, what's up with on desertification and loss of fresh water?

Kidding! I'm totally onboard with you.

[Captain Sensible]

5. Don't you find it odd...

.. that most of the cover was lost during the '30s and 40's but everyone is squawking about Hummers and making us live like Hobbits.

Climate change has happened forever we are better off adapting to it than trying to pretend we can change it.

[Nihil]

28. 2 for 2 so far ...

... seeing as how you've just proved that your knowledge of Tolkien
is just as bad as your knowledge of environmental issues & solutions.

See ya. :eyes:

[The Stranger]

7. Excellent post. We have abused Nature's ability to provide using machinery, chemical fertilizers

and pesticides, and perverted natural drainage for irrigation -- all of this to support the OVERPOPULATION that we have created.

We were given it all in this planet, and we threw it all away.

[Codeine]

8. The only thing that's needed

is clean energy. With alternative energies like solar and wind augmenting nuclear power we can maintain our lifestyles with no need for Luddite hysteria.

[High Plains]

9. Solar, wind, nuclear--which is going to run your car?

[Codeine]

17. Any or all of them,

provided we transition to electric cars, as we inevitably will. I don't mean to stamp all over your dreams of returning us all to a forced agrarian lifestyle, but it simply isn't necessary.

[hogwyld]

20. I don't view the agrarian lifestyle as a dream

but I can assure you, it will be a forced reality.

[Codeine]

22. You first, Pol Pot. nt

[NickB79]

25. Pol Pot used military force to create an agrarian industry to satisfy political goals

While what's coming is more along the lines of "grow your own vegetables or get scurvy" kind of forced agrarianism. The force will be applied by Nature rather than any one man, woman, or government organization.

You misunderstand the implications of the path we are currently on.

[hogwyld]

32. Excellent post!

Some still want to put their fingers in their ears and yell LALALALALA. Gaia will correct this imbalance, and quite unpleasantly I might add.

[tama]

34. Accepting necessity

Does not mean it is necessary to accept necessity with a grudge, true joy becomes from enjoying what nature gives. Like the Chinese proverb says:

If you want to be happy for one day, get drunk.
If you want to be happy for three days, get married.
If you want to be happy for eight days, slaughter a pig.
If you want to be happy eternally, become a gardener.

[hogwyld]

15. I'm sure that fertilizer made from spent nuclear fuel

will create humongous, plentiful food as well...:sarcasm:

[Codeine]

18. Advances in crop genetics

are resulting in food that requires less and less fertilizer. And if we stop feeding our food to animals and then eating the animals (a very inefficient system) we would have more than enough food for everybody.

[hogwyld]

19. Do you really trust humans so much

that you aren't disturbed by the thought of mankind fooling around with genetics? I hope I'm not around when that Omega man scenario is unleashed upon the earth.

[tama]

35. There is no need for fertilizers

if what is taken from the land is returned to land. Biotech like Monsanto really hates that idea, because they are in the fertilizer business.

And yes, not eating meat and not recycling organic mulch via domesticated animals to get fertilizer manure is a great idea: feeding the earth-worms and microbs of healthy soil directly with organic mulch instead of composting manure of the livestock.

[GliderGuider]

10. Politics is part of the problem, not part of the solution

I just published an article that discusses what the converging crisis tells us about our civilization and how we got into this predicament. It also examines why those who look to politicians of any stripe for leadership in social and ecological change are bound for disappointment and are probably asking the fox to guard the hen house.:

Political Will, Political Won't

[Gregorian]

24. BRILLIANT ARTICLE!

You've addressed the situation in a big picture.

So many things come to mind. Like how my father and I have discussed "limits" over the years. Or the lack of limits. Or dreadfully watching as people tout growth. More. Faster. Easier. Or how Dennis Kucinich was ignored because of his frightful potential for some change in the right direction.

My belief is that human eyes actually see, and with that sight will take notice and change. I'm in my fifties, and of all the people I know there are only several children. And what I believe will come to pass is a shameful and painful situation whereby things will simply slow down. An uneducated approach. I've suffered immensely over the years as I've watched this stupid progression. I stood on an overpass on my bike around 1970, and saw the Christmass shoppers in their cars. And I've never been the same since. I was absolutely appalled.

I woke up last night thinking about what the Garden of Eden was. It was so clear to me. As though that part of the bible was actually more like an engineering text. It wastn't about religion. It was about psychology. Fear. Comfort. Trust. And throughout the millennia we've strove for just a little more comfort. Filling the furnace with firewood to stoke the boiler got just a little too old after a while. Then we reached this last century where we literally had to engineer our way along in order to simply sustain the number of users.

Where this all goes is hard to say at this point. The melted poles aren't coming back. Species aren't coming back. But one cockroach at a time. One ant at a time. From the wreckage that may ensue, life will come back. But not really. We only had one chance. The resultant recovery will be a malignant planet. Just the remnants of the hardiest.

Once again we didn't use our brains. Like I say- we continue to kill the Garden of Eden, over and over again.

[tama]

26. Garden Planet

http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=27815

[Gregorian]

31. Don't ask what I think of those communities.

I've had a passion for larger rural (or what was rural) pieces of land. In passing I've seen the plans for these kinds of places. Certainly better than how we're living now. But just ask yourself what has to happen when a bearing in a tractor goes bad. You either live in a modern way or go all the way back. Those communities are phony. The last one I saw was a group who are trying to buy up 4000 acres to build a "self sufficient" community.

The most important step anyone can take toward changing the world is to not have children. Period. Nobody wants to hear that. But in fifty years the world (patient) would be stabilized.

But if a bearing goes bad in a tractor, there has to be an entire infrastructure to mine, manufacture, transport it. There is no small Timken. And the same goes for a shovel blade.

I'll admit that I'm totally at odds with this stuff. For example, I forgot to get black beans. Now I'm sitting here today having to run off to the store. Something I don't do lightly. I'm a sitting duck. I don't grow my own beans. I wouldn't know how. I'm preaching to me as well as everyone else.

[tama]

33. Those communities

I've visited few ecovillages and I certainly don't think they are phony. Building sustainable permaculture and learning to live communally - members of community depending on each other and the well being of the land instead of technocratic mass society based on exponential growth and destructive consumption - is certainly not easy and the learning processes can only happen gradually.

"Going all the way back" to real sustainability is of course inevitable in the long run, but we don't really know what technologies are sustainable in what surroundings and how they could and would be so, and even if we knew the real limits, directly jumping all the way back would not be realistic in any way. One of our major underlying problems is bivalent thinking in terms of either or instead of just acting pragmatically and accepting humbly what mother nature gives (and takes).

Two thirds of human population are still very low tech subsistence farmers and it is hard to see how that big majority would be the biggest problem, when the ruling elite of one third is doing practically all of the exponentially growing consumption and pollution of our planet. Population numbers are not the real issue, the issue is how we behave and what values we pass to our children. This does not mean that I would not have great respect for ethical refusal to have children - but what would be unethical would be to demand that everybody else makes the same choice.

The world is not our patient, we are not above it. I like to think that if there is something broken in human souls, they are sent to this beautifull planet to heal - and by letting the planet heal itself from the hurt we are causing, also our souls will be healed. First we must learn patience and understand that these processes will take multiple generations.

[Gregorian]

38. I agree.

I see it many ways. As long as people don't think their Prius is the solution to the world's problems. Or their eco community is, as well. I also have trouble with the progression toward a sustainable planet. Right now the planet is in the emergency room. There is no doubt. Massive melting of poles that will never come back. Species gone.

But you're right, steps have to be taken. One step is the first in the process. And certainly eco villages are a far cry from paving entire fertile valleys, such as has been done across the country.

Population is almost completely ignored. And it is the most important factor in this process. So why not take the most important step first. It's simple. It's clear. And without that step, the rest is just a temporary bandaid.

I like to keep an open mind on this. We're on the same side of the fence. And how we better what is left is open for discussion.

It's odd that I left my last farm because of clearcutting around me. I bought a ranch, and the seller retained timber rights on a portion. He's logging it. And I'm being sued because I own the land. The funny part is, I like the guy who is suing me. We are on the same side of the fence. I hate logging. Although the way to stop it isn't at the chainsaw. It's to stop the demand. Which is population and modern lifestyle driven. I'll lose money, but I won't resort to hating my neighbor. And I think you even touched on that. Like Eckhart Tolle's books. A New Earth. The Power of Now. He claims that the destruction is the result of unconsciousness. We've come down a long road. Although not long in duration. We've really done the most damage in the last two hundred years or less.

Well, I guess I will punish myself by watching the RNC convention now. Argh.

[Delphinus]

37. Hey,

I saw that on Carolyn Baker's blog - great job!

[GliderGuider]

42. Thanks.

I was pleased and surprised to see it. I really like Carolyn's take on the world.

Today in her news roundup email she published a piece of mine she found here on DU: Some thoughts on the coming changes -- without knowing it was mine. The universe is a very coincidental place.

[Blue_Tires]

40. thanks for that

[chicagoexpat]

11. It's them damn polar bears

that Palin wuz protecting us from

Russki spies in white suites! Taking over the world!

[lonestarnot]

36. I believe we are very screwn.

[Jersey Ginny]

39. Thanks for posting this. I've got my solar panels. It means "nothing" individually

except for the fact that all of us have contributed to a slow but significant awareness of Global Warming. Try to stay optimistic. It's our only hope.

[kurth_]

41. Canada is next to Alaska

Isn't this a foreign policy crisis for our supreme generalissimo bimbo Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard?