In a rather reflective last post for the year at The Daily Blog today — Tomorrow is being written in New Zealand’s mountains — I ruminate on the impact warming is having on New Zealand’s largest glacier. All pictures were taken last Sunday, from a little yellow boat bobbing on the growing terminal lake. A visit to Aoraki Mt Cook to see the glaciers is something everyone should do. It’s climate change writ large, and happening on our doorstep.
Naah, Gareth, it’s just the “rebound from the Little Ice Age”, which was itself a “rebound” from the Medieval Warm Period…
Doncha’ know that the climate is like a kid on a trampoline? Why bother with all that science stuff, when a simple real-world analogy will do, and doesn’t make your brain hurt?
Hey, it worked for the masterminds behind NZCSET’s successful case against NIWA, right?
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2012/09/renowdens-foot-again-finds-his-mouth/#comment-121053
Like a rubber ball, it’ll come bouncing back to you… (cue music).
It always astonishes me that a system that can flip between full-on ice age and warm interglacial in the space of a few thousand years is somehow presented as being stable and self-correcting. Wishful thinking doesn’t cover that sort of stupidity.
Fair point Gareth. The ice age / interglacial is important as it shows how fast things can move. Read the book After the Ice, about human communities at the end of the ice age. At one point sea level rise was several metres in 50 years, and remains of settlements have been found relocating several times over to higher ground.
I hope we dont end up triggering the same. Of course it will ultimately stabilise, but not before a lot of trouble is caused.
No doubt some fool will say we are in an ice age, because glacier xyz is advancing in the himilayas. Never mind that the majority are retreating.
Cherry picking is one of the characteristics of scientific denial, so yes such a vapid response is to be expected.
Glaciers are retreating, and while Im not normally one for personal anecdotal evidence, Im sure Auckland is getting more tornadoes.
Im aware of the science behind global warming and tornadoes, not certain yet, they mainly form over land etc, but somethings changing. Anyone else noticed?
Yes I have noticed a couple of things.
In younger days (late 60s/70s) I climbed extensively in Southern Alps. Tasman Glacier and surrounding peaks where a favorite. They were magnificent, majestic, awe inspiring and had been that way for a long,long time. (Almost forever you might say in a mans lifetime perspective).
Now regrettably they (the southern glaciers and Alps all) are as a body ridden with cancer. I am torn between locking them in my memory as they were or visiting the dying carcase of a dear friend to say goodby.
Anybody who doubts that climate change is a reality has got to be wearing the starkest shades invented.
I`m well aware `bad news` is not at all popular. For heavens sake the economy is now `going forward`,we have `growth`. Job creation is paramount and staying popular in the lead up to and in election year is absolutely eventual if we are to hold our place on the world stage.
Just one problem. The cost of `adaptation` has grown dramatically.
( That`s the cost of `doing nothing` as opposed to `saving your ass` by kicking the fossil fuel habit).
`Show me the alternative` you say.
No problem, just show some commitment to a fossil fuel free planet and spend a fraction of the dollars spent on finding yet more of the toxic fossil fuels that are killing our environment. (Science shows the planet has done this before, numerous times,we humans have not so “How lucky do you feel Punk”)
The time for doubt has long past. What you see occurring now WILL get worse and WILL affect us, our children and grandchildren for at least another century even if we were able and committed enough to make dramatic and immediate change NOW.
Don`t ask me to provide evidence. If you are able to access this blog site you are fully equipped to educate yourself. If that`s not enough, just look out the window occasionally.