A Glimpse Of Our Future (Warning: Not For The Faint Of Heart)

More footage from Chasing Ice, this time an astonishing clip of the largest iceberg calving ever recorded. Arctic sea ice levels this summer hit a record low; according to the U.S. National Snow & Ice Data Centre in September, more than 600,000 square kilometres more ice had melted in 2012 than was ever recorded by satellites before. We are indeed melting our children’s future, and apparently many of us are too busy to hold our governments to account for their lack of action.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YoA_Z7y8f6Q]

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Does it all seem a little far away? After all, most of us don’t live anywhere near the Arctic. “Total Devastation” is a perspective from the U.S. East Coast post Hurricane Sandy:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xQI0dhGMWw&feature=player_embedded]

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More links:

ClimateStories.us

Arctic Sea Ice Levels Hit Record Low, Scientists Say We’re ‘Running Out of Time’

Arctic Sea Ice Falls Below 4 Million Square Kilometers

Chasing Ice: A Treasure Worth Saving

CHASING ICE is a feature-length film that follows Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey, a historic documentation of retreating glaciers in some of the most remote regions on the planet. Balog and his team have devised revolutionary time-lapse systems to capture monumental geological transformations in action. Their cameras compress years into seconds to show landscapes disappearing at a breathtaking rate.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/8107060]

*via Climate Denial Crockof the week*


More links:

Extreme Ice Survey.com: Seeing is Believing

See James Balog’s 2011 TED talk

Glacier National Park Turns 100, Will Soon Need New Name

From the Seattle Times, May 11, 2010:

The gorgeous million-acre park in northwestern Montana celebrated its 100th birthday Tuesday. But many of its glaciers have melted, and scientists predict the rest may not last another decade.

The forests are drier and disease-ridden, leading to bigger wildfires. Climate change is forcing animals that feed off plants to adapt.

Many experts consider Glacier Park a harbinger of Earth’s future, a lab where changes in the environment will likely show up first.

Average temperatures have risen in the park 1.8 times faster than the global average, said Dan Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist.

The change is visible to the naked eye, with the vast moraines left behind as the giant glaciers melt away. Climate change is blamed for the increasing size and frequency of wildfires, and lower stream flows in summer.

St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, photo by Ken Thomas

Click here to read the full story on The Seattle Times.