
West Antarctica Begins to Destabilize with ‘Intense Unbalanced Melting’ - antouank
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/west-antarctica-begins-to-destabilize-with-intense-unbalanced-melting
======
staticelf
This is why big countries suck. They are slow to change and a wrong move is
horribly damaging. Look at the US or China, no matter how I or all my
countrymen live in Sweden it won't really matter if climate change deniers get
in charge in the US for example.

I just think it's so sad to see everything go to shit due to some greedy
assholes that won't invest in solutions that are effective AND sustainable.

I plan to become a climate change prepper in the future because shit will hit
the fan sooner or later.

~~~
hash-set
It would be stupid to crash our economy and then find out that the "solutions"
didn't work. Or that we come up with technological fix to the problem. Or that
that whole thing was just a ploy by leftists to seize power.

Anyhow, if you expect 7 billion people to do anything in regards to climate
change, don't hold your breath.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Anyhow, if you expect 7 billion people to do anything in regards to climate
> change, don't hold your breath.

Except that China is halting construction on 20+ coal plants. And deploying
renewables faster than any other country. And putting in place heavy subsidies
for electric vehicles. Chinese citizens overwhelmingly support renewables and
the cost associated with it:

[https://cleantechnica.com/2016/09/29/china-cities-
overwhelmi...](https://cleantechnica.com/2016/09/29/china-cities-
overwhelmingly-want-renewable-energy/)

Americans? One presidential candidate wants more fracking, the other one
_thinks China invented climate change_ , and everyone else is oblivious in
their SUV on their way to Starbucks.

One might argue its easier for China to evolve to a non-carbon economy because
their citizens haven't tasted the decadence Americans have of a carbon-
intensive lifestyle; regardless, China is going above and beyond what the US
has ever considered for climate change policy, and drag us Americans along for
the ride. Thanks China?

~~~
JamesBarney
Fracking has actually been beneficial in reducing climate change because the
carbon footprint of natural gas is far lower than coal. Most O&G companies are
currently pushing for a carbon tax.

~~~
lowgman
That is like saying a ball peen hammer is beneficial in reducing damage to the
skull compared to a sledge hammer.

~~~
JamesBarney
And one saying which is relevant is "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the
good."

------
ajmurmann
What's the best way to profit from rising sea levels? Investing in land that's
higher up in our nearby coastal cities?

~~~
oliv__
This better be sarcasm

~~~
tjic
Trying to make a profit is the most effective way of helping people.

I hope that it is NOT sarcasm.

~~~
jmcmichael
It's this kind of delusional faith in 'free market' capitalism and its profit
incentive that has led us to the climate disaster that we face.

------
youeeeeeediot
Investment in coastal flood prevention technology for major city centers that
can legitimately be helped. Places below sea level today -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_el...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_elevations_below_sea_level)
\- need to be abandoned.

~~~
pmyjavec
Won't a lot of this coastal flood protection infrastructure just add emissions
to the atmosphere, thus grossly exacerbating the problem? Seems like _way_ to
little, _way_ to late.

Trying to just "build a wall" around cities just doesn't sound like it's going
to work, I even saw designs where buildings in Manhattan will have to be built
on stilts, but how much environmental environmental damage will all this new
construction do?

Probably best off to just start relocating these cities and find new homes for
the inhabitants.

This combined with other issues like fracking, leaking methane into the
atmosphere aren't exactly filling me with confidence.

~~~
stale2002
You are overestimating the effects of climate change.

Sea levels will rise by a meter over the next hundred years. That's really not
very much in the scheme of things.

~~~
pmyjavec
Have a read of these:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-
coast-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-
by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html)

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/cities-exposed-to-rising-
sea-l...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/cities-exposed-to-rising-sea-
levels-2014-4?r=US&IR=T)

I'm going to say you're underestimating the affects of climate change if you
think a one meter rise in sea level _globally_ isn't a big deal. Not to
mention a selfish point of view, considering some peoples homes are already
being inundated and the catastrophic effects it will have on coral reef
systems.

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ocschwar
Grow bamboo.

Harvest it.

Bury it.

That's the sort of thing we have to start thinking about.

~~~
jofer
Burying bamboo or other biomass is not a particularly reliable or effective
form of carbon sequestration. (Anywhere you bury it, it will decompose and
most of the C02 removed from the atmosphere will wind up as CH4 + CO2.)

Carbon sequestration is a very active area of research, but for the most part,
you're looking at injecting liquid C02 or water with a very large amount of
dissolved C02 into deep reservoirs. Ideally, you want to inject it into a rock
that will react with it to precipitate carbonate minerals over time, instead
of dissolving what's already there.

At any rate, large-scale carbon sequestration is an interesting but difficult
problem. It's been done successfully on small scales, but how do you do it on
a global, carbon-neutral scale? It's surprisingly tough to figure out, and
we're not putting anywhere enough focus on it. It's certainly better funded
than a lot of things, but it needs more research and more funding.

~~~
snarfy
Instead of trying to bury it, grow more. Increasing the total _living_ biomass
would reduce CO2.

~~~
jofer
Only for a year or a few years. Biomass doesn't really sequester that much
carbon on a long-term scale.

You need to move CO2 from the atmosphere into the geosphere. Biomass can do
that (e.g. hydrocarbons), but it's inefficient (a lot of it goes back to the
atmosphere) and slow. Carbonate precipitation is much more permanent, and it's
something we can force to happen at a high rate.

------
M_Grey
What a depressing, predictable series of events. Just wait until people start
connecting the dots between climate change and global instability. I predict
useless hysteria.

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Pica_soO
We cant stop it, can we at least do ecology transplants?

Little patches of nature system, taking from destabilizing temperature zones
to areas where they could thrive?

Basically, give up the concept of a invasive species, and speed a adaption up
that would occur anyway?

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E6300
What, exactly, is "West Antarctica"?

~~~
idlewords
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctica)

~~~
knz
To save the click: "West Antarctica, or Lesser Antarctica, one of the two
major regions of Antarctica, is the part of that continent that lies within
the Western Hemisphere, and includes the Antarctic Peninsula. It is separated
from East Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains and is covered by the
West Antarctic Ice Sheet."

------
ommunist
Bloomberg rarely does proper math. Melt both polar caps and the ice of
Greenland, and you barely get global sea level rise by very few inches.
Antarctics as a whole is 90% of the world land-based ice. 29 mln cubic km. All
of the floating ice is around 3 mln cubic km. It may look that it can cause
60m high sea level rise, but most of this will be evaporated into milder
global climate and stronger rivers. We shall have larger Caspian Sea, larger
Aral Sea, perhaps green Sakhara, and perhaps come catastrophic rains in the
temperate zone. Picture is very distant and very different from global warming
speculations anyway. The Earth seen past with no polar caps, it also seen ice
ages, these will inevitably happen again.

~~~
vkou
You're forgetting thermal expansion (And it takes decades for increases in
atmospheric temperatures to cause a likewise increase in water temperatures.)

~~~
ommunist
I actually bet on thermal contraction and the new ice age to come faster than
melting of all of the polar ice we have today.

