The early December 2014 news of the acceleration in melting the West Antarctica one-mile-thick ice sheet which could raise global sea levels about 3.3 meters (10 or 11 feet) was terrible to hear just 100 days ago.
Now on March 16, 2015 research by scientists from Imperial College London and institutions in the US, Australia and France is published in Nature Geoscience reporting that intrusion of warm ocean water is accelerating melting and thinning of Totten Glacier's ice shelf, which is around 150 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide and drains enough ice from the East Antarctica Ice Sheet to raise global sea levels by 3.5 meters (nearly 11.5 feet).
The two sheets together would raise the global sea level nearly 22 feet and the Northern Hemisphere (think: U.S. and Canada Atlantic coast) would have the sea water rise effect quicker than would the Southern Hemisphere. For the truly upsetting details, go here.
16 March 2015: The research is "Ocean Access to a Cavity Beneath Totten Glacier in East Antarctica" by 11 authors available in Nature Geoscience
Memo to Obama about the newly revealed scheme identified as DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [Docket No. PF14–21–000] in the Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 49 / Friday, March 13, 2015 / Notices
Do not kill us, our kids, our grandkids and their children with that Massive Alaska LNG Project with At Least 50 Million Metric Tons CO2 Impact reported in a Daily Kos diary on March 14 2015 !!!
What with the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets one and two miles thick both melting, we just really must not let your Presidential Administration or the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), much less those fools in the U.S. Congress, allow this disastrous LNG project to go forth. Sorry about that.
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Paul Beckwith has this video up: Abrupt climate change is underway already. Don't we wonder if the Planned Alaska LNG Project will hasten global warming and catastrophic climate change despite the quest for evermore obscene profits by this group: Alaska Gasline Development Corporation; BP Alaska LNG, LLC; Conoco Phillips Alaska LNG Company; ExxonMobil Alaska LNG, LLC; TransCanada Alaska Midstream, LP?
Arctic Emergency Methane Group (AMEG) is struggling to achieve several goals that will be all the more remote if big works like the Planned Alaska Lng Project are allowed to go forth. The AMEG press briefing, Dec. 5, 2014, at the 20th annual Conference of the Parties (COP 20) for the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Lima, Peru is available here along with several other AMEG video resources. Paul Beckwith, the primary speaker, is a climatology expert on abrupt climate change. He talks about the catastrophic dangers that the warming of the Arctic region poses to modern civilization and life on Earth.
The EIS for the Planned Alaska LNG Project must confront these realities cited in the 2012 report, Climate Change & International Security: The Arctic as a Bellwether by Rob Huebert, Heather Exner-Pirot, Adam Lajeunesse, and Jay Gulledge:
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has concluded, “A strong body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.” Impacts and rates of change are greatest in the Arctic, where temperatures have been increasing at about twice the global rate over the past four decades. The rapid decline in summer sea ice cover in the past decade has outpaced scientific projections and is drawing international attention to emerging commercial development and transport opportunities previously blocked by the frozen sea. The Arctic is therefore a bellwether for how climate change may reshape geopolitics in the post–Cold War era.
The trend toward seasonally open waters is driving increased interest and investment in oil and gas exploration, shipping, and fishing in the Arctic. The recent economic recession has not affected these developments significantly, as they were always intended to be middle- to long-term developments following the progression of sea ice retreat. Indeed, high oil prices and advances in technology continue to support the drive toward offshore drilling in Arctic waters. The global economy, which has begun to show signs of recovery, is likely to rebound long before oil and gas exploration and shipping could be scaled up in the Arctic. China, India and the rest of the developing world’s growing middle classes will need oil and gas and other resources, and the world’s shipping routes are already so congested that the development of northern shipping routes is not a question of if, but when.
In response to these changes, many of the Arctic states have begun to re-examine their military capabilities to operate in the Arctic region. Some have started to rebuild their military forces, while most of the other states are drawing up plans to begin the rebuilding process. Multilateral organizations and non-Arctic states are also looking for new roles in the Arctic. All of these actors are attempting to come to terms with the meaning of Arctic security, a concept that was relatively simple during the icy decades of the Cold War. Recent national policy developments arising from the effects of climate change on the Arctic commons demonstrate that climate change is indeed a national and international security interest in the traditional strategic sense.
This study catalogs and analyzes dozens of major policy statements and actions by the Arctic states, other states with Arctic interests, and multilateral organizations between 2008 and 2012.
In the entire
National Security Strategy, May 2010 on Page 50, there is only one paragraph revealing U.S. Arctic Interests: “The United States is an Arctic Nation with broad and fundamental interests in the Arctic Region, where we seek to meet our national security needs, protect the environment, responsibly manage resources, account for indigenous communities, support scientific research, and strengthen international cooperation on a wide range of issues.” Now the U.S. is about to assume its two year chair of "eight nation" Arctic Council. Seven of the eight member states have huge indigenous communities living in their Arctic areas (only Iceland does not). Organizations of Arctic indigenous peoples can only obtain a status of (non-voting) Permanent Participant to the Arctic Council only if they represent a single indigenous people resident in more than one Arctic State or more than one Arctic indigenous people resident in a single Arctic State. The Planned Alaska LNG Project will greatly affect Arctic indigenous peoples. The broad theme for the U.S. chairmanship is ‘One Arctic, shared opportunities, challenges, and responsibilities", diplomatic language that is explained in the next paragraph.
In May, 2013 the National Strategy for the Arctic Region set forth the U.S. strategic priorities for the Arctic region. Two priorities are: Advance U.S. Security Interests (meaning escalate the re-militarization of the North) and Pursue Responsible Arctic Region Stewardship (meaning plunder the North). The Planned Alaska LNG Project will strengthen both of these strategic goals. The Planned Alaska LNG Project will do absolutely nothing to mitigate the conditions that drive the apparent necessity of achieving these goals. The EIS should address that environmental impact as well!
The outstanding Daily Kos diary Mother Earth weeps as Arctic Circle ice cap slides into the sea includes a shocking video of the largest glacier calving event ever filmed. On May 28, 2008, a historic breakup calving event at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland lasted for 75 minutes as the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water. The Planned Alaska LNG Project will impact the environment by promoting the global warming conditions and rapid climate changes that precipitate events such as that catastrophic calving of a berg as large as the southern part of Manhattan Island.
Defeat the Alaska LNG Project!
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