Give Up Blog

Friday, February 17, 2006

Sell your beach house now

This Science article on Greenland's glacier melt suggests that the so-called tipping-point in global warming may have already been reached. Here is a lay article on the result.

Greenland's mass loss therefore doubled in the last decade, well beyond error bounds. Its contribution to sea-level rise increased from 0.23 +/- 0.08 mm/year in 1996 to 0.57 +/- 0.1 mm/year in 2005. Two-thirds of the loss is caused by ice dynamics; the rest is due to enhanced runoff minus accumulation. Ice dynamics therefore dominates the contribution to sea-level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet.

In other words, using satellite imaging Rignot et al. have shown previous estimates of losses in the ice sheet and acceleration of loss have been underestimates, largely because satellite imaging allowed the evaluation of parts of Greenland that are unaccessable. So, buy mountain real-estate.

This unfortunately sucks as a Give Up issue since most of the blue states are on the coasts and blue state environmentalism, while superior to that of the red states, may be inadequate to slow global processes caused by countries like China and India. Oh well, hopefully all the other crap the Republicans pull will get them kicked out in time so that we can start reducing global climate change.

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

The Stop Global Warming Virtual March is a non-partisan effort to bring all Americans together in one place to prove that global warming is here now... and, it is time for us to do something about it.

One person can can change the world. Over 275,000 people have already joined. Imagine what millions of marchers can do! Together we will be heard.
Join the March Now!

www.stopglobalwarming.org

It’s easy! There is every reason in the world to become a virtual marcher. Why? Because it affects our public health, our national security, our economy, our planet's future.

On Earth Day 2006, the March will arrive in Washington, DC and use the strength of our numbers to urge 1) Our government to join the rest of the world in addressing global warming, and 2) American business to start a new industrial revolution on clean energy products that reduce our dependence on oil and other global warming pollution.

6:46 PM, February 17, 2006

Anonymous said...

A virtual march? So we can be ignored that much easier?

9:45 AM, February 19, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

It's not an uncommon form of comment spam. Single-issue trollers wander around looking for their issue then cut and paste their spiel without regard to the blog.

I'll leave this one up as a warning of what we won't accept here, I'll remove any more we receive.

Also, from a Give Up standpoint, we don't believe in protests because left-wingers have forgotten how to protest in a meaningful or effective way.

What you get is a bunch of jackasses, trying for some bizarre reason to mimic their parents' generation, making puppets, acting like hippies, and generally damaging any chance of being listened to by anyone that matters. Even if normal people are part of a protest, news coverage is certain to only cover the fucking idiot in a polar bear suit or whatever, thus making sure what 500,000 people showed up for is marginalized and seen as unimportant by the majority of Americans.

At Give Up we do not believe in protests until the hippie shit is fucking abandoned forever, and instead of mimicking their parents, they mimic someone effective like MLK. I don't mean non-violent resistance either, I mean showing up for the protest in a 3-piece suit and looking like you're someone who's opinion might actually matter. It serves many functions, you look respectable, if the cops attack you they look like the assholes (everyone privately celebrates when cops stomp anarchists wearing all black), and the people whose minds you're trying to change might actually listen.

2:29 PM, February 19, 2006