“We now have direct evidence that not only was the ice gone, but that plants and insects were living there,”…Near‑complete melting of Greenland’s ice over the next centuries to a few millennia would lead to some 23 feet of sea‑level rise.
We all hem and haw endlessly about how bad the climate change problem is, but by not collectively DOING something about it, we’re leaving it up the countries that actually have the biggest populations and have the most at stake in taking drastic action.
In America or Europe we are talking about building sea-walls and flood control systems, spending billions or trillions on preparing for rising sea levels.
What about India? China? Southeast Asia? They have far more to lose from extreme weather and wet-bulb heat events and far more people with lives at risk and less resources to put into massive concrete walls around their coastal cities. How are we going to feel when they start seeing extreme, unilateral options as viable? If they decide to do drastic geoengineering projects like shading the earth with aerosols or orbital shields, we could all suffer if those projects have unintended consequences. (The climate is complicated, yo.)
Clickbait title. I don’t plan to be living over the next few centuries or millennia. There are plenty of reasons to not buy a beach house but this ain’t one of them.
When we stopped caring about our communities, we stopped caring about being a part of something bigger and capitalism has taught us all to just sit and stew in our own depression and our own emotions. Boomer generation 2.0.
I think that’s kind of a tongue in cheek joke.
Regular people don’t respect the actual issue at hand(like yourself a little) trying to portray it as relevant or something they can understand is important for scientists to do.
Unfortunately science and the truth are worthless if morons don’t understand them.
Only if we let them stay in power…
OTOH, you’ve yet to encounter any conclusive evidence that you’re mortal.
Honestly, I’m 195cm so in all likelihood I’m mortal than most people on average
I don’t plan to be living over the next few centuries or millennia.
It’s hard to read this without hearing a “I got mine, so f everyone after me” in it. When you talk about this with your friends, maybe consider rephrasing it?
These are the same people who complain endlessly about the sorry state the baby-boomers left America in.
Thank you for phrasing that well
I gave a friend who said something like this and I didn’t find the words to respond. Anyway, he moved to Florida near the shore so asked if he was worried about insurance, flooding, or even being able to sell the house if sea levels rise too much. He replied that he looked at the flood and storm projections for his expected remaining life and decided he was ok. Since he has no descendants, he doesn’t care if the house loses value or it becomes uninsurable
I think if the title said something like “cities of the world could flood in the next century” rather than “don’t buy a beach house”, you would have a point. But that’s not the case here.
One -possible- different past. Of course, we may be wrong about what caused it to be much warmer -in Greenland- -at that time- .
One simpler example: the Earth’s North polar axis may once have farther from Greenland. Plate tectonics has made this a much different planet than it was 200Million or 400M or 600M years ago, and there was possibly a time when Greenland was much farther from the pole … and had no ice.
Or (if Charles Hapgood was right), much of the Earth’s crust may have shifted it’s position (think an orange-skin no longer firmly attached to the orange) over, say, 100,000 years or so.
