Global Warming -- Idle Chatter

I was watching "Planet Earth" with my granddaughter last night; we watch it often -- it's one of her favorite DVDs. The younger granddaughter dislikes nature documentaries and won't watch them with us for the most part. She particularly dislikes documentaries in which the fish do not talk. (She's thinking of her favorite alternatives like "Finding Nemo."

Of the six DVDs in the boxed set, and of the five or six selections on the particular DVD she chose, she selected the one-hour segment on "Ice": the Arctic and the Antarctic. She says she loves the narrator, David Attenborough. I was quite impressed how balanced the series is. There was mention of global warming but it was done well.

I can't count the number of times I've seen this particular DVD, but it seems I always hear or see something new.

A new bit of trivia I heard last night which I did not know or had forgotten (it is seldom mentioned -- ever? -- in articles and newscasts on global warming): the Antarctic holds 90% of the earth's ice, and the ice pack in the Antarctic, as we all know, is growing. That little bit of trivia is lost in all the anxiety about the Arctic's loss of ice.

That is quite amazing: the Antarctic accounting for 90% of the earth's ice and is growing in size. [I can't find a similar statistic for the Arctic -- probably because the Arctic is ill-defined, unlike the Antarctic. Greenland and the Antarctic account for 99% of the earth's total ice, but that leaves out the Arctic (except for Greenland). In terms of "coverage," Arctic ice accounts for about one (1) percent of the earth's surface." Again, don't take that out of context. It's not the surface area that is important, it's the total volume, but if the Antarctic and Greenland account for 99% of the earth's total ice, the rest of the Arctic (the part we see in all those Al Gore videos) must account for less than one percent of the earth's total ice, if I did the math correctly.

Don sent me an interesting link to Bloomberg this morning: Pollution Sets Record as Euro Crisis Slows Climate Drive. This confirms what I've been saying for quite some time: a) the EU is abandoning renewable energy due to financial constraints; and, b) the US is going it alone in trying to save the world from global warming -- US CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low. Those two irrefutable facts and others are posted here. Irrefutable in the sense that the New York Times reports these data points as facts. If the New York Times reports something, it must be true.

So, what did Bloomberg have to say about pollution and the euro crisis?

The next victim of Europe’s economic crisis is becoming the global effort to restrain fossil fuel emissions and curb pollution now at record levels.

The European Union, which led the fight by establishing the biggest market for carbon emissions, is letting the matter slip as a priority. EU leaders didn’t discuss climate strategy at their four summits this year, while France, Germany, Spain and Britain are focused on paring the region’s 10.5 percent unemployment rate and 10.8 trillion euros ($13.9 trillion) in debt. The matter didn’t emerge during U.S. presidential debates. 

The inaction contrasts with widening concern among scientists that the time to react is passing. Sea ice in the Arctic shrank to its lowest on record this summer as drought devastated corn crops in the U.S. Midwest and superstorm Sandy pummeled the East coast after becoming the largest ever tropical system in the Atlantic.  

Three things:

• Sandy was the biggest, but cause and effect?
• drought devastating corn crops? anyone remember the 30's Dust Bowl? or the warming spell during the Viking Age -- warm enough to grow grapes on Greenland?
• Arctic ice shrinking? absolutely no mention that the Antarctic holds 90% of the earth's ice and is actually growing in size

And finally, the polar bears are making a comeback also (widely reported, no link necessary). Okay, just one link:

A new study from Canada, based on aerial surveys along the western shore of Hudson Bay -- a region considered a bellwether for bear numbers in the Arctic generally -- found that the polar-bear populaiton was 66 percent higher than expected. The director of wildlife management for the region: "The bear population is not in crisis as people believed. There is no doom and gloom." Oh, and the scientist for the Department of the Interior whose 2004 work on drowning polar bears inspired Al Gord and others has been placed on administrative leave for unspecified wrongdoing.

And so it goes.