Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Artic sea ice gone in 5 years!

Credit: NASA image created by Jesse Allen

Incredible-the data keep rolling in and it all points in the same direction-we're ******! It turns out that reality is much worse than climate model predictions. Just two years ago the projection for an ice-free artic was 2040. At the current rate, all ice could be gone by 2012. Chicken Little is finally right-with a vengeance, the sky apparently is falling. I’ll say it here-anyone who (still) doesn’t get that something momentous is happening is an idiot (and a dupe and watches Fox News)--read about it here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kevin,
As one "in the know", why is it that the U.S. hasn't taken the lead as suggested in the article?

susank

kevin said...

susank: Thanks for asking-great question!

Fist off, there is no ‘proof’ as such, but a high degree of likelihood that something is happening. And, I’m hardly an authority (see realclimate.org) but I believe the short answer is that the transition to a reduced carbon economy will be somewhat to very painful for a geographically large, energy intensive economy such as we have here in the USA-not an easy sell. So, until recently the political consensus was to take a wait and see approach, a stance that appears to be dead-ended in the very near future.

P.S. Prompted by the change in govt. last month, this Wednesday Australia signed the Kyoto Treaty, leaving the United States as the only developed country to reject the treaty.

CS said...

I sometimes can't even believe how stupid, as a nation and as a world, we are.

(You're on a bit of a depressing roll, though, I must say. First the poor deers, and then global warming.)

kevin said...

The deer photo was gruesome and offensive; I just couldn’t pass it up.

But OK, high time to move into a happy space-thanks for the comment :)

Carla said...

This is very ominous, indeed. We've been hearing it for years now...but still so many don't take it seriously. On a brighter note, wishing you all the best this holiday season.

kevin said...

Carla:

Thank you for the kind words-have a great new year.

Anonymous said...

Pretty scary stuff!