Ice Shelf Collapse

I just read an article explaining how the rate at which ice is melting at the South Pole is even faster than computer models once showed. Look at these images of a recent ice shelf collapse in Antarctica.



Satellites have captured the collapse of a massive ice shelf in Antarctica. At 160 square miles the area of collapsed ice was seven times the size of Manhattan.




This series of satellite images shows the Wilkins Ice Shelf as it began to break up. The large image is from March 6; the images at right, from top to bottom, are from February 28, February 29, and March 8. NSIDC processed these images from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor, which flies on NASA's Earth Observing System Aqua and Terra satellites. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center/NASA




Another concern is the Arctic, which experts are now thinking could be ice free by 2013. The North Pole ice free?! *

I think the Luddites had it right. They were textile artisans who were upset with the technological advances of machinery in textiles during the early 1800s. They wanted to keep a set price and the machinery disrupted all of that. They were concerned with their own interests--it wasn't an environmental stand--they wanted to live as they always had.

I think we all need to become Luddites in a way now. Our daily lives are causing the poles to melt, which dumps more water (but not when sea-ice melts--that's still full of salt) into the oceans, which alters the ocean currents. Our actions are affecting the earth in a huge way. It's in our self interest, like the Luddites, to get away from the machinery from the industrial revolution that is destroying our lives. It's not about livelihoods any more. It's about living. You know what's responsible for weather? Guess.





































Yes, that's right. Ocean currents and the atmosphere both affect weather. A bunch of melted ice alters the weather because it effects ocean currents. It's all interrelated, as it always has been.

* On a positive note, my friend over at The Suburban Agrarian, has said that he has heard that big business sees this all as a great boon. If the North Pole is ice free, it will open up shipping lanes and make transporting all of the plastic crap that we have an insatiable appetite for that much easier to get to Walmarts all over the world. Hurray for big business! Hurray for buying junk we don't need at a really low price!! Hurray!!