GREENLAND IS MELTING - The 'VICE' Series

[Segami]

This is a MUST WATCH FOR ALL!

This is only the Debrief segment from Season 2 Episode 2 of VICE on HBO.



The FULL segment when available is a must watch!

GREENLAND IS MELTING


The Greenland segment attempts to put some scale to the concept of climate change. In the film, Vice co-founder Shane Smith heads to Greenland and sees firsthand what massive melting looks like. In one memorable scene, Smith stands with climatologist Jason Box, who is measuring the annual melt by burying long metal poles and returning the next year to see how much ice has melted away. As they stand there, Box explains that from last year to this year, the spot they're standing on has descended by 27 feet. Writing that, it doesn't mean much, it's just numbers. Seeing it, you get a real sense of scale—these two lonely guys on a huge sheet of ice, all of which is melting rapidly.


The Greenland segment puts out some useful facts and figures. For instance, if Greenland melts entirely, it will (by itself) account for a global sea level increase of 21 feet. That puts most major coastal cities well underwater...and it doesn't account for Antarctica, which is melting too. While alarming, the segment is not alarmist, and it's well done—gets in fast, gets the job done, and gets out of there. They make the point that while some forms of climate change benefit certain populations (increasing rainfall in an area, for instance), sea level rise helps no one.


http://mentalfloss.com/article/55703/tonight-vice-greenland-melting

[RobertEarl]

1. Property insurance companies are sweating

[adirondacker]

3. Ironically the 1% (who hold the highest coastal property values) aren't sweating the premium rise...

"As Climate Floods Surge, Taxpayers On Hook to Insure Homes of the 1%

NBC report shows FEMA redrawing flood maps to pass costs of storm insurance from ultra-rich to everyone else

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is redrawing flood maps across the United States to pass the costs of massive storms — expected to worsen with climate change — from multimillion dollar coastal properties onto everyone else, according to an NBC investigative report penned by Bill Dedman and published on Tuesday.

Public records show more than 500 instances across the country in which FEMA re-mapped high-end condos and mansions to change their classification from being in a highest-risk flood zone to a lower-risk one, according to the report. FEMA has deemed at least some properties lower risk despite previous flood-related claims, and over the objections of local officials.

"Carving the flood zone map like a parent cutting a notch in a jack-o'-lantern to make a tooth, FEMA moves the lines on a map for one property, while leaving its neighbors in the higher-risk zone," explains Dedman.

The new classification saves owners of these high-end properties up to 97 percent on premiums paid to the National Flood Insurance Program. Yet, these same properties can still collect on federal insurance money when their properties are damaged. The result: from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, to Orange Beach, Alabama, wealthy coastal property owners are bailed out by U.S. taxpayers for the damage wrought by climate change."

<snip>

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/18-2

The insurance companies will pass on the cost to the homeowners. (the poorer ones, of course)

[RobertEarl]

8. Insurance is socialism with a capital investment basis

Each of us share in the costs of insurance. Only those who find themselves in need get any return.

In the case you have mentioned, note that it is FEMA which is redrawing the lines. And is the insurer via federal funds not the private companies.

It is the private companies who look at the bottom line and profits who are sweating global warming. One way they wipe some sweat from their brow is to get FEMA to insure them against loss.

[Segami]

2. I watched...

..the full HBO VICE 'Greenland Is Melting' segment tonight and the frightening truth hit home hard.

The full segment is definitely a must watch for all.

[Warpy]

5. I don't have access to the whole thing, but I've been keeping up for several years

The whole Greenland ice sheet seems to be sitting on water that is added to every single summer and is kept from refreezing by warmer winter temperatures combined with the enormous pressure at the bottom. When it goes, it's likely to go rather quickly, over a period of years rather than decades.

If it does, Europe is going to have a rough few decades, maybe longer.

[Incitatus]

4. It was a good show. They're going to show it again at 2:00 am EST, HBOW nt

[pffshht]

6. Sea level rise is bad enough but it's the methane in the permafrost melting that's the bigger deal

And the seafloor methane hydrate deposits, bigger still. If a significant portion of that stuff goes up in a short enough period of time, it's the official end of the Holocene epoch and will at least tie with the previous mass extinction events in Earth's history.

[newfie11]

7. +infinity

This could have a great effect on humanity in the very near future!

[fascisthunter]

9. Not Only is the Methane Release Extremely Worrisome

but from what I understand, the mixture of fresh water with salt water, can have a precarious effect on the stability of the gulf stream itself.


Here's an article on it, if folks are interested:

""Our study demonstrates that deep water formation can be disrupted by the freshening of the regional surface water, which might happen due to enhanced precipitation and glacier melting under future climate change scenarios," says Yair Rosenthal, a co-author on the paper."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220141625.htm