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Fascinating. That bit about 20 hours of daylight in the summer being great for farming in Greenland is a really interesting concept.
...and scary."seven meters"
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...434356,00.html
Global Warming a Boon for Greenland's Farmers
By Gerald Traufetter
Known for its massive ice sheets, Greenland is feeling the effects of global warming as rising temperatures have expanded the island's growing season and crops are flourishing. For the first time in hundreds of years, it has become possible to raise cattle and start dairy farms.
Ferdinand Egede would be a perfectly normal farmer if it weren't for that loud cracking noise. Wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt and overalls, he hurries through the precise rows of his potato field, beads of sweat running down his forehead.
Egede, 49, occasionally picks up a handful of earth and rubs it between his solid fingers, but he isn't at all satisfied with the results. "It's much too dry," he says. "If I don't get the irrigation going, I'll lose my harvest."
The cracking noise has turned into a roar. What's happening in the sea below Egede's fields doesn't square well with what one would normally associate with rural life. The sound is that of an iceberg breaking apart, with pieces of it tumbling into the foaming sea.
Egede, a Greenland potato farmer, has little time to admire the view. He spends most of his days working in the fields and looking at the dramatically steep table mountains at the end of the fjord and the blue and white icebergs in the bay. But today he's more concerned about a broken water pipe. "The plants need a lot of water," he says, explaining that the soil here is very sandy, a result of glacier activity.
But he could still have a decent harvest. He pulled 20 tons of potatoes from the earth last summer, and his harvests have been growing larger each year. "It's already staying warm until November now," says Egede. And if this is what faraway scientists call the greenhouse effect, it's certainly a welcome phenomenon, as far as Egede as concerned.
Egede is a pioneer and exactly the kind of man Greenland's government, which has launched an ambitious program to develop agriculture on the island, likes to see working the land. Sheep and reindeer farmers have already been grazing their herds in southern Greenland for many years. As part of the new program, cattle will be added to the mix on the island's rocky meadows, part of a new dairy industry officials envision for Greenland. One day in the near future, the island's farmers could even be growing broccoli and Chinese cabbage.
There are many reasons for this agricultural boom, the most important being a rise in temperature. For most people on earth, global warming still consists of little more than computer models and a number that seems neither concrete nor threatening: an increase of about 4.5°C (8.1°F) in the average temperature worldwide by the year 2100. But what this will mean for Greenland is already becoming apparent today. In Qaqortoq, for example, the average temperature increased from 0.63°C to 1.93°C in the last 30 years. This, in turn, has added two weeks to the growing season, which now amounts to 120 days. With up to 20 hours of daylight in the summer, those two weeks make a huge difference.
A fast-melting ice cap
If what scientists are predicting is true, Greenland will become a central setting for climate change. Temperatures on the island are expected to rise almost twice as much as in Europe -- to farmer Egede's delight but to the consternation of many millions of people. That's because the Greenland ice cap, which rises behind the chain of hills where his farm is located, is shrinking.
Greenland's interior is made up of 2.5 million cubic kilometers of ice that is also up to 3,400 meters thick in places. If this huge mass of ice melts, sea levels will rise by almost seven meters (about 23 feet). Although this horrifying scenario isn't likely to happen quickly, new studies published last month suggest that the shrinking of Greenland's ice sheet is speeding up.
In an article published in the journal Science, US researchers write that 224 cubic kilometers of ice disappeared in 2005, almost three times the annual average between 1997 and 2003.
For Greenland's fortunate new farmers, this means that they'll be able to repeat an important part of human history within a much shorter period of time. Their grandfathers were nomadic hunters in what was then a desolate, ice-covered wasteland, their fathers raised livestock and the current generation is plowing the fields. For farmer Egede, the only evidence of a bygone way of life can be found in the crocheted hunting scenes hanging on the wall next to a giant flat-screen TV in his living room. "Hunting is getting more and more difficult," he says. "The fjord hardly ever freezes over in the winter anymore; nowadays, snowmobiles would sink."
Kenneth Høegh, 40, wants to see Greenland's hunters abandon their rifles for plowshares. As chief consultant to Greenland's agricultural administration, he is constantly campaigning for an agrarian revolution.
Høegh has no illusions. He once worked as a volunteer in Third World countries, including Nepal. He knows that climate change poses a grave threat to those of the world's populations that already suffer from annually recurring droughts and heat waves today. "A few more degrees can mean hunger and suffering for people elsewhere in the world," he says, standing in the garden of his house overlooking downtown Qaqortoq.
The city, southern Greenland's economic center, is home to secondary schools, a harbor, fish processing plants and the agricultural administration. Høegh says that he sees evidence of climate change almost everywhere he looks today.
"Do you see the iceberg out there?" he asks, pointing to a rectangular mass in the bay. "It isn't from a calving glacier." Instead, he says, it's sea ice that wouldn't normally float this far south.
Qaqortoq, says Høegh, almost never saw sea ice in the past. "But now the fjords up in eastern Greenland, which used to be frozen all year long, are melting, and the current is carrying the ice down to our bay."
Fascinating. That bit about 20 hours of daylight in the summer being great for farming in Greenland is a really interesting concept.
...and scary."seven meters"
This must be one of those 'good things' about global warming that Manny likes to talk about.
Mutual fund name, por favor.
Residents of Alaska grow insanely huge vegetables in their gardens because the the long daylight of Alaskan summers.
Creating a microchip is one of the most toxic processes on planet earth, and old computers are a toxic catastrophe waiting to happen.
You guys need to do your part for the environment...
Stop driving
Unplug your computer.
Stop using any form of electricity.
I know you can do it...and...
I salute you.
You know what? Screw you. That is exactly the sort of unhelpful, belittling, ignorant comment that prevents these issues from becoming mainstream and people really thinking about them and examining their behaviour.
No-one is asking for the world to go back to pre-history - that is neither desireable nor realistic. But given that we have a plethora of clean technologies that we are not employing because our markets don't account for the damage production does to the environment, maybe we should be using them and paying a little more for things?
The reason we aren't using clean technologies in most cases is that they are "too expensive", even though this ignores the fact that if the dirty technologies were paying for their pollution the price of clean tech may be comparable or even lower than dirty tech.
I have made changes to my lifestyle. I drive 75% less than I used to, don't buy I don't need, pay for green electricity, reuse/repair everything, etc., and my life is no poorer for these changes. If we all made small changes every year to reduce our impact on the planet, and industry increased the rate of adoption of clean technology, over 20 years we could achieve great things. Instead, everything in the world around us encourages us to overconsume and never think twice about it. And then you have the gaul to mock me for pointing that out???
Have you got kids? If you have, they and their kids, and theirs, will be the ones who pay for our myopic selfishness.
I salute you with my middle finger.
I salute you with my middle finger.
When it comes to machines that pollute the environment, computers are usually left off the most wanted list. Computers have no exhaust pipes or smokestacks belching smog-inducing smoke into the atmosphere. If they did, we probably wouldn't keep computers on or under our desks where they quietly and cleanly go about their business. Or do they?
According to a report published in the journal Environment Science & Technology, computers are more environmentally abusive than we tend to think. Microchips, those tiny and much heralded silicon wafers that allow computers to do their thing, are voracious consumers of water, fossil fuels, chemicals, and gasses such as nitrogen. Specifically, producing a single microchip requires over three pounds of fossil fuels, almost a quarter pound of toxic chemicals such as hydrogen fluoride and arsine, seventy pounds of water, and over a pound of nitrogen.
While those numbers may not sound overwhelming, consider them in relation to the size of a single chip. By comparison, building a single passenger car consumes roughly thirty-three-hundred pounds of fossil fuel. But proportionate to its weight, producing a car requires relatively less fossil fuel and chemicals than microchip production.
Me personally...I think destroying the environment, oceans, and depeleting Earth of it's natural resources just so you can off and talk to some guy on a basketball message board is much more wasteful, decadent and pig like consumptiory than driving a car...
I mean really...what are you accomplishing? Every time you type a letter just remember that you cooked a poor plankton somewhere. In the name of absolutely nothing other than ing off on a message board...
End the hyporcisy...unplug and read a book(an old one).
And start using your hand to wipe your butt...if you don't, remember...every time you wipe...you just killed a tree.
Don't address my post at all. Whatever.
Your stats on the microchip are excellent. Spread that around. We should do the same for everything we manufacture. Really get people thinking about the water, energy and resources used to construct our artificial world
Yeah, so much more energy and resources goes into making a computer than manufacturing a car and running it for 10 years. How many pounds of fossil feuls will it consume?
Accomplishing? Well, primarily, trying to get people to think about these things and actually find out about them for themselves. Until people understand just how far beyond our means we humans are living, there is no hope for change. Also, attempting to counter-balance the lies of people like Yonivore who actively try to mislead people.
As for wiping your arse, heard of recycled toilet paper? I use 3-4 sheets a wipe.
Whott, 100's of people read this forum everyday. We, as individuals, have never had the power to network ideas and influence opinion like we do today. If posting about the enviroment gets just a few people to change their behavior and be more ecological aware and friendly, then the small investment in resources it took is well worth it.
Thank you dan, exactly.
LMFAO...
It's a sports message board. You will not change with your posts on here.
Besides...Greenland wasn't covered with Ice 400 years ago...what was causing the global warming then?
And why are we worried about our children's future...one day the Sun is going to consume the earth...by having children and ensuring future generations you are guilty of throwing innocent people into a mass solar genocide.
Not only that...but since people are the ones creating all the polution and killing the earth...doesn't having those kids, whose future you are worried about, contribute to the problem?
I think if you take a look around you will see that most of the worlds problems, both now, and historically, are caused by overpopulation whether it be environmental, war, famine, etc...so therefore, if you don't have those kids whose future you are worried about, you are doing the #1 thing you can do to solve the world's problems.
We are nothing more than a virus on this planet...we will not destroy this planet...if push comes to shove this planet will erase us as easily as we squash an ant.
So when all the icbergs melt, the polution problems will be solved.
Maybe not, but posters won't change when they post about the Spurs in the Spurs forum either. So when our kids are living in a planet of polluted oceans, air that is hard to breathe, rising oceans and droughts in the West force millions of people to relocate, and our kids and grandkids reflect on what people were busy talking about less than 50 years ago in forums like this, instead of affecting some sort of change for the better, we won't be the one's looking like assholes and idiots.It's a sports message board. You will not change with your posts on here
Its quite simple. People like restricting laws if it doesn't restrict them. Change your gun control, drainage, or emissoins laws into something that will greatly impact what you do but more importantly, your strongest WANTS, not needs.
Much like in 1984 and Winston's fear of rats, one person's deodorant airspray may well be another's gas chugging '69 GTO Judge or more recently, someone's perception of there un-impacting use of the internet, one thing that i pointed out on an enviroment post a few months ago.
Sounds like someone hit a soft spot.
I think it says more about me that i think hunting in this day, age, and culture is stupid, unneccesary, and a waste of money, fuel and time. That being said i'll cut your nuts off if you try to restrict it in anyway.
Kinda like common folks ranting about the waste of top exec's and their gulfstream's, if you had accsess to one, would you still choose not to use it?
1 If even one person wakes up and takes a closer look at the world around them it was worthwhile.
2 Utter horse . Source please.
We have drilled over 3 kms into the ice to look at climatic changes over the last 200,000yrs, so how exactly did we do that if Greenland was ice-free 400yrs ago?
http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/
See, that is the kind of misnomer I am glad to be here to correct.
3 Yeah, "one day" - long after the human race is gone and forgotten, in about another 5,000,000,000 yrs.
So, you think there is no value in caring for something so that the generation which comes after you may also use/enjoy/benefit from it? What an enlightened at ude.
4 Has nothing to do with what Dan and I are talking about. We are talking about moving towards SUSTAINABILITY, not ridding the planet of humans or going back to caves and nomadism. Get a grip and stop trying to marginalise what is an entirely reasonable idea.
5 Absolutely agree that overpopulation is the cause of most of our other problems. Hyperconsumption excacerbates the problem.
6 I agree. In the next century I think the human population of the planet will be drastically reduced by a series of wars, famines, epidemics and systemic environmental collapse. It will be a good thing for the planet, and subsequent generations of human beings, if we can learn from our mistakes, and as long as it doesn't involve nuclear disaster.
7 Your understanding of logic is absolutely unparralelled. Yes, let's just hasten the destruction of everything and get it over with, shall we. Hand me the big red button, please...
LOL, your rebuttal to number 6 and 7 are contradicting. If you feel its a good thing for the planet and the subsequent generations, why are you being sarcastic about prolonging it?
oh we are going to die. i mean we really are going to die. lets ing walk everywhere. better yet, lets buy a hybrid. yeah thatll do the trick.
ing neo-luddite cracksmoking alarmists suck about as much as those who want to take away porn guns abortion drugs etc.
sickdsm - the number of people on the planet currently exceeds its carrying capacity given current consumption and technology use, and there's little we can do about that but try to moderate our impact. The thing is that have the technologies to moderate our impact, and the ability to reduce our consumption, but there is no individual or political will to do so.
I don't want to see the wholesale destruction of the humans on the planet,or of the planet itself - to sit idly by while it all happens and not do anything about it goes against the very core of my being. I have to TRY to do something, even if I feel our current civilisation is doomed. The other thing is, I feel it's going to be a very nasty, messy and horrific century to live in, and if enough people wake up to these things we may be able to change that, so I'd really like to try to do something about that.
Believe me, I wish I didn't know what I do, then I could just carry on in blissful ignorance. But since I do know the things I do, I have to act on them or I can't live with myself.
"7 So when all the icbergs melt, the polution problems will be solved." - this makes absolutely no sense to anyone was my point, it's just specious crapola.
Willie - as for you, go fvck yourself. Try reading the fvcking thread before you spout your horse .
I am exactly NOT a neo-luddite - how many times in this thread have I stated that a luddite point of view gets us nowhere??? It's clean technology that is not being used due to BS economic and political concerns that I'm up in arms about.
I am also NOT an alarmist - all the facts are out there, you just choose to ignore them as human beings have done forever. Sadly, we do not learn from our history, or our vaunted science which has been warning us for 30+ years about the environmental disasters that we are now seeing.
As for your "we're all going to die" claims, no pal. But what we do now will not only affect you and me though, will it? It will affect every subsequent generation of every living creature on the planet. When did we become so fundamentally short-sighted?
Something a lot of people don't even think about is that the generations that currently inhabit the earth are the first few to be focussed so intently on what happens to them and not their children. Everything today is "me me me", individually focussed. Back when the world was composed of real communities, as little as 60 or 70 years ago, concern for the things we pass on to the next generation was actually something people thought about. Talk to your grandparents about this. They lived in a world with a different mindset. Not any more though.
As for drugs, legalise them (love that internal contradiction - you call me "cracksmokin" as a put-down then say I'm as bad as people who want to take away your drugs). Abortion, porn, already legal. Guns, should be illegal unless necessary - maybe then Americans wouldn't kill each other with guns at 10 times the world average rate per capita.
That you say these things with Willie Nelson's photo next to them is a travesty. He is an environmentally aware, pot-smoking advocate, not a redneck cracker as you come across...
cool. i need to bold some text too. the apocalypse is upon us! i'll just post my warning in under 10K characters.
btw willie is a pot smoking redneck.
A pot-smoking redneck who is aware enough to start his own biodeisel company and promote the cause of renewable fuels. Not that they are a solution in and of themselves, but they are piece of the puzzle.
I only emboldened at you because you clearly didn't read the thread. I stated a number of times that ludditism helps no-one, and oh how I love being misrepresented - NOT.
The point is not that "the apocalyse is upon is", it is that we will bring our civilisation to a crunch point if we don't start changing things now. The point is that gradual, incremental change can achieve massive results over the long term, but if we don't start now we don't have a hope of averting future disaster. How hard is that to understand? Unlike the Romans, we are seeing a huge number of warning signs that something is going very wrong with our civilisation, and can do something about it, we are simply choosing not to. Are these concepts too subtle for you guys or something?
Actually, I think I know where the problem is - it's worldview. I was once like you. I was once blissfully ignorant and even if I had known I would have dismissed it all as alarmist nonsense. Then I lived in England and Japan for 3 years and it allowed me to entirely re-examine my assumptions about the world. At about the same time I actually started to think and investigate and not take the word of corporations and media for everything, and lo-and-behold, my worldview expanded. And now I see a lot of things that I was blind to 5 or 10 years ago. Humans react poorly to change, and we require catastrophe before we act on a problem because we have this "it won't happen to me" or "it's okay, it won't affect me" minset. History teaches us that and reinforces the message 100 times over, although for some reason we fail to learn the lesson and keep making the same mistakes we always have.
I will continue to talk about these things even though nobody is listening. Not to do so is simply not an option, because I care about people and I care about the beauty of our planet, and it sickens me that money has perverted most people's lives to the point that they have forgotten the most basic and essential of truths - people rely on each other, and we all rely on the health of the planet. If the planet is damaged, so too will we be.
Here ends the sermon.
enough proselytizing. change your own self first hero.
Ummm, Willie did that for the farmers, not for hippies.
If its good for all those involved, the world, and the future, why do you fight it?
Jesus christ, you must be another moron who thinks that you can alter the destiny of this world.
Ok, i'll accept your bull scenarious of impending doom. And let's say for s and giggles we do sign the kyoto treaty and taking some real steps to curve global warming.
What in does that accomplish?
Well, the ensuing effect will be that china and india, along with russia, will be exempt, accelerating the speed at which these same countries wish to eclipse the western economies.
Then since man only creates 3.4%-4.5% of all harmful gases, the next step is to take draconian steps to eliminate the man component in this one.
So in essence, let's start with energy. We could all do away with recent technology like; cars, computers, trains, rail stations, home heating and electricity, and jet fuel consumption etc. After that we could drive tupperware cars fueled by bean sprouts causing tremendous increases in roadside fatalities. Ofcourse, we'd have to alter our transportation system, which will have a domino effect on the price of consumer spending, which could then lead us spiraling down towards a depression.
And let's say we do hit a depression, and curbing global warming is still your number one priority. Well the next step in curbing methane emmisions is to slaughter our cattle, pork and chicken industry; since their product is responsible for most of the smog and methane emmissions.
So now that the world is in depression and our countries and people are starving, your next step is to do greater harm to our food supply.
But you see, we're not done yet. WE still have to deal with the overpopulation issue, which is another cause of climate altering deforestation nemisis on our environment. To solve this, people like RuffRider yourself and NbaDan can start to pass laws in the developed countries, levying fines on those wishing to have more than 1-2 kids. Then both of you can go to the africs and latin america, and personaly do the job no one wants to do....... Slip a condom on every ethnic third world man before intercourse.
ANd now that this has all commenced, Al gore is president, the chineese are touring our country laughing at us saying, "You stupid americans, we conquer you tiger style, and own all resources. You silly cowboys have to drive scooter to work, and eat overpriced eggplant burgers in your silly hemp clothes. Ha Ha Ha, have fun putting condoms on dirty third world man, after that you can slip one on me for use to american pros ute tonite. Have funs stupid cowboys. ha ha hao hao"
So in essence, we are supposed to congradulate you for believing a former Vp clutz; who took in chineese dollars for campaign contributions, wants us to sign kyoto and exempt china, allwhile believing his idiotic movie which forces you to think we have to take extreme measures to stop the problem, which will hurt us and not his contributers.
So after the effects of economic slumps on the west;
which in turn has rippling effects on the third world and increases the starvation problem thus killing more people, and when we have starved a 1/3 of the world only to curve the doomsday date by 20 yrs, becuase we're in essence "swallowing drano to heal a minor digestive problem", the end of the world will commence, and we'll be there dying a slow death like we have for the past century implementing your weed reforms.
Thanks for nothing.
Last edited by gtownspur; 09-04-2006 at 11:20 AM.
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