Scientists: Alaskan warming is disturbing preview of future

[Judi Lynn]

Scientists: Alaskan warming is disturbing preview of future
By SETH BORENSTEIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers


ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska is melting.

Glaciers are receding. Permafrost is thawing. Roads are collapsing. Forests are dying. Villages are being forced to move, and animals are being forced to seek new habitats. (snip)

(snip) While global warming is hurting oil drilling, it's the increased burning of fossil fuels such as oil that causes global warming. In June, the Department of Energy announced that it would spend $270,000 to help Alaska rewrite its rules about how thick ice roads should be.

Permafrost lies under 166 Alaskan towns and 1,700 miles of Alaskan highways. Melting is causing whole chunks of the Alaska Highway to come apart, state officials said at a January global-warming conference.

Permafrost is melting "under forests as well as under buildings and roads," said atmospheric scientist Michael MacCracken, who headed federal climate-change studies in the 1990s. (snip)

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[Systematic Chaos]

1. I heard about this a while ago.

A few years ago I saw a news story somewhere about that. They showed a pickup truck driving down this stretch of road that resembled a sine wave with an amplitude of maybe 5 feet from peak to trough and a period of 30 or 40 feet. It was the craziest thing I ever saw, and I shudder to think how easily that would induce motion sickness in people.

It sure does suck to think of what's happening to such a beautiful place. Looks like I'd better plan on making the drive up there next summer while there's still something to see.

[trotsky]

2. Why rush?

Wait a few years, by then it'll be the hottest spring break location!

And yet Repukes can sit there and say, "Nope, no such thing as global warming." *sigh*

[Boreas]

3. More on warming in Alaska

A bark beetle infestation has devastated millions, yes, millions of acres of old growth spruce forest across Alaska.
http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/stories/052303/out_052303out003001.shtml

The UAF Geophysical Institute's web site is great. The Alaska Science Forum will keep you glued to your monitor, I promise.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/

[tom_paine]

4. Yes, in the background our tiny human struggles for Liberty

The Earth stands with ALL the trump cards.

Here we are, essentially refighting DubyaDubyaTwo (with Amerika playing the role of Kinder, Gentler Nazis) and struggling to retain the progress made since DubyaDubyaTwo as well as preserving the truly egalitarian society that grew out of the Veterans of DubyaDubyaTwo, which ultimately lead to the 60s and the attempted extension of Civil Rights to ALL people.

So much effort that could be expended on helping withstand the coming storm of Global Warming and it's side effects will be squandered by the future on Civil War 2 or Orwellian-Totalitarian Empire (the only thing that can suppress Civil War 2). On making more fuel-efficient autos, on discovering cleaner energy, on travewlling to space and mining asteriods...

:-(

It's quite clear that NONE of that is going to happen now (if these shadows remain unaltered by the future).

Gonna suck in more ways thatn one to be an Imperial Subject of Amerika in 2100.

"Why do grown ups tell kids that there are no such thing as monsters?"
"Most of the time it's true."
--Newt and Ripley, "Aliens"