news.nationalgeographic.com — Nearly a century after Capt. Robert Falcon Scott explored the southern continent, experts are working to save the British explorer's wooden hut and three others in the area from slipping under the snow forever.
Jan 12, 2010 View in Crawl 4
ironnickJan 13, 2010
First - global climate change has been politicized to the point that people make non-objective blanket statements with the phrase. As tofagerl pointed out above, Antarctica has topography, which means the entire continent will not be submerged under the ocean. That doesn't mean the threat to it's ice caps isn't real. Climate change means exactly what it's name says - change. Some places will get hotter, some colder, some wetter, some dryer, etc. etc.Second - the nearest wild polar bear lives some 12,000 miles away in the arctic of the northern hemisphere. Yes, both places are cold and snowy (your simplified humanistic view of a dynamic natural world), but that doesn't mean a polar bear could survive in Antarctica. Anti-Environmentalist Fail
Closed AccountJan 13, 2010
Meh, I'll just have the 100 year old butter.
zarchonJan 13, 2010
Wasn't it changed to climate change because the world really wasn't warming as a whole? So now if some places get colder and some places get warmer then really we don't have global warming do we. Think about it, the Co2 in the air is causing the earth to retain hat, how does this cause places to get colder? OK, so it changes the weather pattern and cold air is sent elsewhere cooling that location but the earth, as a whole is getting warmer. OK, how much warmer? What? You mean the temp of the earth isn't even up to what scientist say is the average temp for the planet? But it isn't the temp that is the problem, it is how fast the temp is rising!I don't buy the global warming/Climate change thing any more. That said, so what if the waters rise a few inches? The water isn't going to rise hundreds of feet, just inches. So some coastal flooding may happen. So what, people can move. More water in the ocean, more rain for fresh water for us. More Co2, more crops to feed the masses. Digg me down, I don't care. There was a time when I was one of very few people here who felt as I do. More and more people are figuring it out. Soon we will have just a few of you Climate change believers and you can hook up with the Flat Earthers.
piddlydJan 13, 2010
I appreciate that you at least had the balls to respond, as opposed to the random drive-by "bury and run" posters, ironnick. But just because I didn't pay attention to the polar region in question, does not mean I was arguing with invalid points.You got me on that one. Wrong freezy-cold place. My bad. And of *course* the Polar Bear comment was really just a sarcastic little bit of hyperbole. As is, really, the claim about it being under water. So, if we want to get anal about facts, though - First - There is nothing in the photo journal to indicate what elevation the post is at. Just because there are volcanoes at 5000 feet of elevation in the area, certainly doesn't mean that this hut is at that elevation, right? So unless there is other information that was not cited being brought into this argument, we don't know if rising sea levels could threaten this building *or* not. The argument against is equally invalid as the argue for with the facts in this article and presented here. Your politicized bias is evident in which invalid, unsubstantiated argument you accept without question, and which one you reject without consideration. SecondIt is logically inconsistent that in a world that faces decreasing polar ice-caps that a building being "forever buried in snow" is a threat. Granted, we've changed the playing field to "global climate change" because global warming turned out to be inconveniently under-descriptive. But it seems like a fairly reasonable step to say to oneself, "Wait a second, they're talking about rapidly retreating polar ice caps, glaciers and sea-ice, but they're worried about a historic site being buried *forever* under the snow if they don't take some action to prevent it?!?" Such willing suspension of disbelief among the pro-global-climate change - that asking *reasonable* questions gets you buried. Is your blind faith in the "science" of global climate change so complete that it prevents you from asking logic questions based on reason and observation when you encounter them - or attacking anyone who dares to do so? Sounds more like a dogmatic religion to me. Burying is such an apt description for what happens at Digg... but it isn't really the comments that are being buried, it is the readers who are more often burying their own heads in the sand (or snow, as it were) because they don't want to be confronted with any opinion that doesn't agree with theirs. As you point out, it is such a politicized issue with so many different arguments I think that it is hard to decide which side is more or less trustworthy. The opportunities for corruption and bias on both sides makes the whole issue one that requires a person to carefully analyze the information being presented to you. This is such a hot topic because so many people will claim that the "experts in the field" are more highly divided on the conclusions than the "community of experts" presents it to be. The "community of experts" then responds, "we're not highly divided those who claim to be of differing opinions than the majority are almost universally biased and have a corporate agenda". But then that vocal division claims, "actually the voice of the community is highly biased, and has a political agenda". If you can't see the difficulty in making an informed decision when faced with cross-talk like that, you need to hone your critical thinking skills. And then you find an article like this, on Nat Geo, that logically and rationally contradicts many of the "pro-climate change" claims. I'm not arguing for or against climate change either. I'm arguing for people to use their god-damned critical reasoning skills and ask tough questions when they're OBVIOUS. I'm asking people to break away from their cherished dogmatic beliefs long enough to go, "well, that IS kinda contradictory, at the very least". The idea that the posters who brought this up were instantly, rapidly buried without any rebuttal posts shows a close-minded, irrational, dogmatic mind-set among those who believe in global climate change. I don't know how you can get around that conclusion, and I don't know how that conclusion can give anyone a strong feeling about the credibility of the pro-global-warming community. Once more. Environmentalist FAIL.
piddlydJan 13, 2010
I was struck by the journal entry, "If we had lived, Englishmen would have been talking about the trials we experienced". I think that highlights the spirit of adventure that has been somewhat lost in modern times. This guy was facing down his death and took the time to not only acknowledge and face it, but write it down in his journal. That is pretty hard-core.
thunderclapJan 13, 2010
Ask Al Gore Apparently he knows.