Holy sh*t – if this video doesn’t alarm the heck out of you, you don’t have a pulse!
New findings on the state of the Arctic sea ice, resulting from a collaboration between many international agencies, confirm new data collected from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite spanning 2010 to 2012, and data from NASA’s ICESat satellite from 2003 to 2008. And the news isn’t good, folks. Humanity has never experienced an ice-free arctic, but that’s all going to change in the next decade unless we make a dramatic downward shift in our production of carbon dioxide. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s time to address the global climate crisis; let’s put our human ingenuity, the hallmark of our species, to work.
A few years ago, some scientists were predicting that the total volume of summertime ice in the Arctic, what many call the “air conditioner of the planet,” could decline by as much as 75 percent by 2020. For the most part they were dismissed by their peers for being “too aggressive” in their climatological models. Now, thanks to two high-tech satellites capable of directly measuring both area and depth of ice (and thus calculate total volume), these experts have been vindicated. Read more on MNN.com.
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More links:
I guess the reports showing ‘Record Summer Arctic Ice growth’ for 2012′ are just outliers?
Considering this data, what do you think, Tom?
I usually get my news about the state of the arctic ice from the scientific bodies charged with monitoring the state of the ice, like the NSIDC. And as far as I’m aware of, they did not report anything reassuring about the state of the ice this summer. For example, in September 2012 they reported that the arctic sea ice extent settled at a record seasonal minimum. http://bit.ly/R0bzTG
So I guess I would say that the media headlines aren’t always the best guide on many important issues/crisis facing us these days. Make sure you always use your critical thinking facilities, and check the data (ie go as close to the source as possible) that is being reported on.
It’s totally incredible that there’s news like this that barely surfaces, if at all, in traditional media: here in the UK the idiot box still prattles on as it has done for days about the ‘contaminated food scandal’*, and other irrelevant trivia (such as sports and celebrity infotainment). I keep asking myself why this is, and cannot come up with any answers that don’t require conspiracy thinking.
* horsemeat being mislabelled as beef. Well, no suprise there, most marketing is creative mislabelling (such as tuna — to give just one example of a species facing extinction — being labelled and sold as ‘food’).
I agree, P, we live in a mad, mad world.
As for the food scandal, as a local food enthusiast, I hope it’s a wake up call to people on that front. If people want to know what they are buying/eating, growing your own and/or getting to know your farmer is really the only way. If we change the way we eat, we could change the world!
I clicked the ‘Like’ button but liking this news does seem to be wrong. A ‘panic’ button might be more appropriate. As Mr. P. says so well, the utter madness of what industrialised nations (or perhaps better said media industries) across the world focus on is beyond belief.
I have just finished reading Guy McPherson’s book Walking Away from Empire and will be reviewing the book next week on LfD. It is a very scary, uncomfortable read.
Yet the band plays on …..
And, to put it all into context, I then came across this:
Man Sues Parents for Not Loving Him Enough, Seeks $200,000 and Two Domino’s Pizza Restaurants in Damages
Like most of us, Bernard Bey knows the root of his problems: his parents. Unlike most of us, however, the 32-year-old Brooklyn resident is seeking compensation for the damage his parents caused; earlier this month, Bey filed a self-written lawsuit in a Brooklyn court, accusing his parents of physical and emotional abuse, which led to him feeling “unloved and beaten by the world.”
If you wish, the story may be read here http://gawker.com/5986916/man-sues-parents-for-not-loving-him-enough-seeks-200000-and-two-dominos-pizza-restaurants-in-damages
LOL – maybe we should all sue our parents (although that does open the pandora’s box of what our own children may choose to do!).
I think I’d have to screw my courage to the sticking point to read McPherson’s book, but will look forward to your review of it as a first tentative step towards tackling it. Have you seen this video from November’s Bioneers Conference? The sound and video are both not the greatest quality, but it’s worth it if you’re interested in what McPherson has to say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFY31MIubG4&feature=player_embedded
Oh, thanks Christine. Will use that video. Oh, if you find it appropriate, please feel free to repost my essay coming out on LfD tomorrow “To see is to understand.”