Remember, kids: The deficit is an emergency, not global climate change! Got it?
STOCKHOLM — The ice of Greenland and the rest of the Arctic is melting faster than expected and could help raise global sea levels by as much as 5 feet this century, dramatically higher than earlier projections, an authoritative international assessment says.
The findings “emphasize the need for greater urgency” in combating global warming, says the report of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), the scientific arm of the eight-nation Arctic Council.
The warning of much higher seas comes as the world’s nations remain bogged down in their two-decade-long talks on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Rising sea levels are expected to cause some of global warming’s worst damage — from inundated small islands to possible flooding of New York City’s subways. Oceans will not rise uniformly worldwide, because of currents, winds and other factors, but such low-lying areas as Bangladesh and Florida will likely be hard-hit.
The new report, whose executive summary was obtained by The Associated Press, is to be delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and foreign ministers of the other seven member nations at an Arctic Council meeting next week in Greenland. It first will be discussed by some 400 international scientists at a conference this week in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Drawing on improved research techniques and recent scientific papers, the AMAP report updates forecasts made by the U.N.’s expert panel on climate change in its last major assessment in 2007.
Well, it’s not a depression for the Uberwealthy; it’s a buying opportunity what with super low interest rates and falling prices of real property.
Also, the Uberwealthy figure they can move very easily to higher ground. They may miss their oceanfront vacation homes, but they can bring in sand, etc., and build anew on the new ocean’s edge.
Not so the little people, the non-Uberwealthy.
Now, as to societal crash? The elites think it will not affect them.
Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, which looks at different societies, notes that when the elites, the leaders of a society, do not feel the effects of changes doing damage to the entire society, that society tends to NOT take the steps which might have saved the entire society.
That’s where we’re at, I think. Obama said he would do something about that; he has not.
Excellent comments by jb. Nations dominated by corporations will never, never take any meaningful action. It will be up to individuals and the local groups with whom they associate to do the tasks that are needed – such as planting trees, composting, considering biochar techniques and trying to build up carbon in the soil, etc.