Most of my fellow comp-sci majors would still be living in 2040, in a world free of apocalyptic events. News of a flooded planet should certainly raise your blood-pressure when you realize that it means that your life would be cut short by thirty years or better. Even if it weren't due to happen until 2100, that's certainly going to cut our grandchildren's lives quite a bit short.
What a terrible way to go! How could we let the earth be swallowed by melted ice (sometimes known as water) when the effects of global warming are basically reversible? Truth is, enough people don't believe this type of catastrophe could ever happen, which is making it very difficult to get through to people when encouraging them to live more responsibly. Why would someone want to impede their luxury over a myth? Waterworld was just a really bad movie, right?
There are some real wise guys out there, claiming that the melting of a few icebergs won't change the sea levels significantly. Well guess what, they're right. Icebergs are floating in the ocean and have therefore already displaced their mass in water. That means, when they melt, the seas won't increase at all. This would be exciting news if we were only witnessing the melting of a few chunks of floating ice. The problem is, the ice we are talking about is in glacial form. That means that their mass is supported by land and is therefore not effecting the sea levels in any way. As those glaciers melt -- or chunks of them fall off into the sea -- they raise the water levels significantly, all over the planet. The remaining ice over Greenland alone is almost 684,000 cubic miles. Adding that to the ocean would raise sea level more than 23.6 feet...and that's just one glacier! (2) Tragically, it's going to take much less than that to change the coastlines and devour small islands. That process is in motion and must be stopped now!
So, what can we do to help reverse global warming? You need to be the eighth person. You need to hop on board, tell Bruce you got this one, give Liv Tyler a kiss, sing an Aerosmith song and buckle up for conservation. Reduce your use of electricity (3), Reuse (4) and repurpose items and Recycle (5).
In conclusion, I apologize if I've frightened you. If you're panicking about the fact that your great-great-and a few more greats-grandchildren are going to be living underwater in the year 2200, you can relax. The asteroid Apophis(6) is going to take the planet out way before that.
(1) http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/melting-ice-rising-seas-easy-how-fast-hard
(2) http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/418.htm
(3) http://globalwarming-facts.info/50-tips.html
(4) http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/content/organize/0,21770,1088458,00.html
(5) http://www.thisland.uiuc.edu/57ways/57ways_28.html
(6) http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/dec/07/spaceexploration.research
1 comment:
WOWo
Thats very true and this blog really helped me because i was looking for some true facts fpr glacers and it really helped me a lot! I really like the Bruce Willis part... I started cracking up when i read that!
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