Greenland becoming more green, thanks to Global Warming
From: Susan Clark,
The Ecologist
Published November 23, 2012 08:25 AM
I don't want to be told that thanks to Global Warming - now accepted
by the majority (77%) of Americans and so therefore, in my opinion, a
new Tipping Point - strawberry plants can now survive a Greenland
winter.
I don't want to see neat little rows of budding lettuce plants
growing outside a polytunnel. OUTSIDE a polytunnel; over-wintering under
the snow but come the Spring, still alive and sprouting new shoots;
cabbage and potatoes to follow.
And I don't want to hear a Greenlander livestock farmer telling me that
(once again, thanks to Global Warming) he now has enough newly ice-free
pasture land to double the size of his 20,000-strong flock of sheep.
None of this is what I want to hear or see. But if I thought that was
bad, the worst moment in the whole 60-something minutes of the new CNN
film Greenland: Secrets in the Ice was the moment when presenter, Fred
Pleitgen tells me that after strawberries and lettuce and pasture fields
bulging with ever more sheep, it will be the miners moving in - looking
for the huge reserves of diamonds, gold, uranium, gas and oil they
believe to be hiding under the ice.
"Mining companies are hoping for a bonanza here, if the ice continues
to retreat," Fred adds.
Some are already drilling.
In other words, we can look on the bright side because as the Earth
warms and the Artic ice melts, someone, somewhere can push the
business-as-usual 'growth/greed' agenda and make some more money. Lots
more money.
This programme - a kind of idiot's guide to why we might want to think
twice about destroying our planet - follows Polar 6; an ice survey
research plane now mapping the alarming rate of ice-melt across
Greenland which is the world's largest island.
As it flies over clear blue pools of ice-water melts, Fred tells us that
recent NASA images have shown an unprecedented level of surface ice melt
there: 97 %. I think I have misheard that so I rewind and play it again.
97% says Fred. Can that be right? I rewind. Again. 97 %. "Twice the
usual amount." he notes solemnly.
In fact, the Artic ice sheet is losing mass at an alarming rate: close
to 300 square kilometres (115 square miles) a year.
The Polar 6 reseachers, who are from Germany's
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and
Marine Research, explain that the Secrets in the Ice (from the
title) they are looking for are in fact those pieces of information that
make up a kind of frozen archive of information about previous climatic
conditions including temperature, ash (from volcanoes) precipitation
levels and dust particles present. A solidly-preserved record, if you
will, of the climate that goes back 100,000 years. And for this they
drill down deep into the ice covering the middle of mainland Greenland.
Cold. Hostile. Gigantic.
An ice sheet more than twice the size of Texas.
A frozen winter wonderland.
Now that's what I want to hear when someone tells me about the ice sheet
that covers vast tracts of Greenland making it the second biggest ice
mass in the world.
Until the rest of it melts ....
I switch off. Depressed. I turn the TV back to the UK's good old BBC
where a couple of gents have just won the Pointless Quiz Show Jackpot of
£20,000.
"What will you do with the money?" asks that presenter.
"Oh travel, of course," says one.
"To the Artic," adds his mate. "Yes, we like a cruise."
"Better get on with it then," I found myself shouting. "Or else the only
thing you will see will be oil rigs and strawberry fields ....Forever!"
When is it on?
Greenland: Secrets in the Ice is being screened this weekend by CNN
International on Saturday November 24 at 09:00 & 20:00; Sunday November
25 at 02:00 & 10:00 and Monday November 26 at 03:00 (all times GMT.)
It's written and produced for the mainstream, so SkyPlus it for your
friends who are still climate sceptics.
Susan Clark is Managing Editor of Resurgence & Ecologist.
Greenland valley courtesy the
Alpinist.
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/Blogs/1691983/strawberriesfrom_greenland.html
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