I just watched this most utterly depressing show on PBS; Alan Alda doing Scientific American. This episode was on global warming, specifically Alaska and the Arctic.
We are so screwed. It's gotten just warm enuf for all those little buggies in your neck of the woods to head north, so now forests are dying. Permafrost is melting, so centuries of dead vegetation may start to decompose and give off ...CO2, gasp and my gracious. There may be as much CO2 sequestered there as there is in the atmosphere. The Arctic Ocean is now getting open sea in the summer; open water absorbs heat, increasing the temperature, whereas sea ice reflected that heat back out. Glaciers are losing 1-3 feet in thickness, per year.
All of this is accelerating. (And, they didn't even talk about fire danger from all the dead trees).
Shit. What can I say? The one good thing about all this, not mentioned in the show, is that staunch anti-environmentalist conservative Senator Stevens is now a firm believer, since it is effecting his constituents.
Fuzzy@losingmyfurfersummer.com |
