This past weekend, I went up to the White River Indie Film Festival, to see the screening of Chasing Ice. Missed it when it was here.
For those who don’t know, this film is a record of the retreat and melting of the glaciers. Twenty something cameras were set up to automatically take a picture an hour, for three years. A composite video was made to show the change to ice forms and landscapes.
The film is breathtaking, sobering, depressing…actually beyond description. The vanishing glaciers, and unprecedented melt astounded the expectations of all participants.
After the film there was a Q&A with the director. A question was asked about the impact on communities directly and immediately in contact with all the released water, and their altered environments.
The answer was surprising. Something to the effect that all the warmth and melt makes it so that people can no longer run their sleds over the ice, but that all the chunks of ice on the loose makes it so that boats can’t safely use the waterways either. The distruption to fishing and related core activites is of course devstating to them.
The most disturbing part of his answer though: with all the new land areas opened up by the melt, oil companies have inundated the area, looking for new drilling sites.
After choking on, then trying to digest this flabbbergasting fact, it made me think. This issue is not about the deniers or the head in the sand crowd anymore. It’s really a matter of global showdown. And how many of us are unwittingly, or unknowingly on the wrong side?
Can anything be done, will anything be done?
Someone asked . . .
Someone asked me, after watching this film, “How will this change your life?”
The question itself is the answer
Not likely to hear that after the Fast and the Furious, or the Expendables
2012: A Goliath melting year
“Melting in Greenland set a new record before the end of the melting season. Over the past days, the cumulative melting index over the entire Greenland ice sheet (defined as the number of days when melting occurs times the area subject to melting) on August 8th exceeded the record value recently set in 2010 for the whole melting season (which usually ends around the beginning or mid September).”
http://www.greenlandmelting.com/1/post/2012/08/2012-the-goliath-melting-year.html
Pictures help.
Sometimes it takes dramatic visuals to be convinced of something. Reading or hearing about it, for some, just doesn’t do the trick.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Besides, it’s a nice day today, right?
the trailer
if you need an assist in fathoming the magnitude..
see the trailer that’s linked in the story– as dramatic a visual as you’ll ever need.
the film’s power came from those moments and sights, but lingered on so they sink in unforgettably.
today's milestone
here’s a graphic graphic of graphs, for those who like their data that way.
it depicts the carbon saturation in the atmosphere in several timescales. the amazing thing is that the science here suggests dire consequences at the 400 ppm, an unprecedented number in recent geologic time.
the page was written in 2007, and predicts that threshold will be reached in ten years.
today, for those who follow such things, and the rest of us too, is the day we passed that number.
http://www.planetforlife.com/co2history/
10 mm
According to Guy McPherson (http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/), mean sea level has risen 10 mm each of the last 2 years.
10 mm is 1 cm, and 100 cm = 1 meter, or 39 inches for the non-metric. 1 meter in 100 years does not seem so bad, which is what would happen if sea level continued to rise at 1 cm per year.
But 10 mm is an increase from the previous 2 or 3 mm per year. What if the increase, keeps increasing?
If the sea level starts rising 2 or 3 or 20 cm per year, then things get reaallly interesting.
The past 2 winters, we were treated to a number of pictures and videos of the sea breaking through the dunes at Balston Beach in Truro, MA on Cape Cod and in other places, a house or two being washed away.
Those scenes are likely to become a common global phenomenon in the coming decades, along with more Sandies and Irenes.
And that is just for openers.
35 years
just for openers is a tame understatement.
the picture described in detail by McPherson urges us to understand that when temperatures rise as they are expected to, the planet will be inhospitable to our and most other species. he sees this occuring in a little over three decades.
you’d think a little discussion would be the least of a response.
discussion here?
There is quite a bit of discussion on McPherson’s site – or are you talking about discussion here on iBrattleboro?
The problem is that this is a very scary conversation.
When the magnitude of the climate disaster becomes clear, panic will be the next step.
I’m not saying the panic couldn’t be avoided but it would take some political will immediately that is not in evidence.
I was listening to Vermont Edition on VPR last night at supper. The discussion was of the new wind power law and how it actually does some “good” things as it slows down the building of wind farms.
It struck me as tragically daft that this state that does so much right and forward thinking, is backing into the greatest crisis humanity has faced.
The phrase “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” does not do justice to the farce.
Music that moves us, not soothes us
Scary for sure, no greater buzzkill than the extinction card. But…
At the screening of Chasing Ice..the filmmakers were lamenting the preaching to the choir factor. Audiences are the ones already convinced. How to reach everyone else is the question. A ‘climate change, third party?
More discussion here would be interesting, and perhaps useful. I’d love to live in a radicallized town in an effectively responsive state. But as many have pointed out, the discussion needs to happen; in school curriculum, media board rooms, halls of power, etc.
Not the ‘hedging bets of the status quo’ kind of discussion. The type that happens when a family member becomes ill, or the block is burning. Then we can maybe transcend panic, and face what we’ve wrought
exactly
Yes. My point was that many people won’t understand something until they see it (which is often too late).
I liked the film trailer because they use animation to tell their parts of the story. Time-lapse photography has really come a long way, and showing melting is an excellent use of the technique.
….
We have a crappy furnace design in our house. It’s meant to be tied to a water heater, and the two are supposed to work together to do the job. Because we have an apartment, though, we have unique water heaters and the furnace is left alone without its partner.
This causes it to have trouble whenever the inside and outside temperatures are close. If It is 48 out and 58 in, for example, it doesn’t want to start.
The “fix” is to sit in the basement and flick the on/off switch for 45 minutes, letting it start up, then shutoff over and over again.
Sitting down there each fall and spring gives me much time to think about the furnace.
My number one thought is that it takes me only a few minutes to build a fire, but it can take an hour for the furnace to decide to work.
That leads me to wondering if landlords will ever do anything at all to make the house energy efficient, such as glaze old windows, insulate around doors and windows, insulate the basement and pipes, add solar, put in a wood stove, etc.
Then I think of all the other houses just like this, or worse. None are slated to be improved in any way any time soon.
There’s no shortage of work that needs to be done, and the country has high unemployment. A dull witted politician should be able to see that they could put the two together and start solving two problems at once.
…
There’s also the issue of letting something go so long that the cure becomes quite arduous. Fixing a small leak is easier than letting a pipe burst and dealing with the aftermath. Perhaps we want to ignore the drip a bit longer.
I saw the film "Chasing Ice"
I saw the film “Chasing Ice” last night. It is now available on Netflix.
While there was some extraordinary photography, I did not think this film was compelling whatsoever with regards to climate change.
1) They only reviewed a small fraction of the glaciers that they set up cameras to view.
2) Many of James Balog’s claims were not backed up by anything, rather they were mere scary ad hominem baseless statements common within climate change alarmists’ discourse.
3) I felt Balog was self-serving in his presentation of the film. His last words where he says: “I want my children to know I did all I can regarding global warming” was hypocritical and off-putting considering the amount of fossil fuels he undoubtedly utilized to transport he and his crew to the corners of the Earth umpteen times.
Great photography, but my opinion is that overall this film means nothing regarding “climate change” except to reinforce that it isn’t happening.
Spencer
Brattleboro, VT
Science ~ unlike opinions, is self-correcting
Spencer writes, “my opinion is that … “climate change” …isn’t happening.”
The best thing about science is that it is self-correcting. It does not suffer from unchangeable monolithic, dogmatic viewpoints often found in human opinions.
Climate change is and has been a natural process for eons since the oceans arose from the mists.
Climate change itself will always be affected by geologic and meteorological forces. When scientist factor human effects on climate it is based on measureable conditions that can provide forecasts.
I think it is the actual numbers behind human emissions that concern scientists, as they are measured along with prevailing natural conditions. This comment seems to take 100% of all measurable human effects of their impact as none-existing. Really?
Obviously human emissions play a vibrant part in our climate. Smog is only one example of how climate is affected, and therefore subject to change.
It may be a matter of degree, but climate change as measured from human activities is very real. Indeed, real with or without “alarmist” components and deniers factored in. Therefore, climate change is worthy of our attention and certainly our concern, now and for the future of our kids.