Arctic melting will test our morality

Unfortunately this is may turn out to be another example of man dominating man/animals to his own ruin.

...one more thing....they discovered some fossilized dinosaur eggs in China estimated to be over 100 million years old....the oil being taken from the planet is several thousand feet below the surface.....many people think that this planet just magically appeared one day...it has grown over an endless amount of time and continues to grow daily....cosmic dust and other parts of the Universe settling here.... hundreds of millions of years and it is still on the surface....if you do not feel totally insignificant then you are just unaware....and once again you are not important by what you are...only by what you do....treat this planet with the same respect you reserve for your best friend...that is what it is....Golden Ruler...Will....

We cannot reconcile new ways of living with old methods. They simply will not be sustainable. A growing population reaching 9 billion within the next couple decades will not be sustained on old methods. This isn't even a question of choice anymore. It is a question of necessity. Concentrated solar thermal power, wind power, and alternate energy sources could save this country by improving our economy, our health, and our environment so we don't reach that fourth degree. It is time to grow up and move into the 21st century. It is time to put the good of the whole over the selfish needs of a few.

...I do not know why this is so hard to understand....as this planet grew to the size it currently is...organic material turned into oil and that oil serves a purpose...balance and lubrication...where it is...leave it alone and come up with another viable replacement..the technology and ability is already in place....the only thing stopping it is oil whores....greed.....try an experiment..drain the oil from your vehicle and drive it around for a short period....the Earth is the same...on the subject of cars...if they must use oil why has the basic style of combustion motor stayed the same for so many years..the reason is monetary gain...greed....the standard 5 quart engine could be made to function just as well on a small part of that by changing the pumping ability...this would save large amounts of oil and should have been done years ago...but the gasoline engine should go the way of the dinosaurs that have powered it...waste not...want not...Golden Ruler...Will....

Um. that takes morality as well as courage.

No. It will test how resourceful the human race is. It will test our ability to come together has humans and work on world issues. It will also test who reacts to natural events and who doesn't.

This could be a turning point for the human species. an apocalyptic turning point. If we drill, there will be no turning back, and the consequences from this would eventually destroy us from global warming, and will happen in the near future. But in the other notice, if don't drill, or find another energy source,etc..., we will still be able to strive as a race, and as countries. But, as our monkey instincts are, we are most likely going to drill, and be oblivious on what is happening. Ignorance about this is the worse weapon we can have. It's time we see each other as people, not classes, not races. Time to wake up world, and before we're screwed please.

I agree. Religion plays a part in this. Thinking we are omnipotent over the Earth and that it is somehow ordained by 'God' that we are entitled to just take what we want. A warped view of stewardship for sure. Certainly not the one I learned as a child.

ive been doing some research for an ethics class, and one author said: mother nature wants to revert to her old self as much as we want to stay the same (Stay comfortable and serene, when, in the world around us, there is chaos.)
Christianity is one of the main contributors to the human thought that we are one thing and the earth is another, and humans can exploit the planet to our desire.

It's coming to a head JanforGore. i hope we make it. And Al Gore was right. You are amazing. Thanks for keeping us up to date on all of this.

How to handle to those who doesn't want to give up the fossil fuels. This s a test for humans indeed, to be able to change and give up the greed at once! We can all rise up and defeat the authority higher than us, and demand the environmental change..we can do this, for justice ad doing what is right, this fight for global warming will start with us, and will be worth it in the end..if this is the way it has to be, then so be it...greed vs. justice

The pace of the acceleration is frightening.

Agreed, and am ready.

Yes, but at what ultimate price? You cannot put a price on survival of a species. How absolutely ignorant and dangerous of us to think this.

Russia Today have already reported that Russia's economy will benefit from 2025 as they will have easier access to Oil.

...What entity claims to own the arctic and antarctic....I have never known this...there is a wonderful place in the edge of Arizona called Texas Canyon...right down the road from the Thing on Interstate 10.....several miles of large boulders rolled from everywhere around and piled up by glaciers....this is important for many reasons...its beauty and mostly to show what tiny visitors we are to this splendid planet....and that just this last layer of this planet has been covered with ice many times....we can control the damage we inflict on this planet...we can not control the distance we happen to be from sources of heat and light as we zoom through the Universe...we are at a time when everything is perfect for inhabitation of this planet...it comes and goes...instead of marveling at how extremely lucky humans are at this time...there is destruction of every kind imaginable...it must come down to extreme ignorance...nothing else explains it...Golden Ruler...Will...

From link to article above:

Long frozen both politically and geographically, the Arctic is rapidly thawing into another slippery terrain on which Europe’s twin desires to both preserve a planet in peril and secure a share of its dwindling resources are now playing out.

On Thursday, the European Com­mission made its most sub­stantive effort to reconcile those competing agendas with the release of an Arc­tic initiative that urges nations to establish a bet­ter system of international governance for the re­gion, to protect its environment and native people and to com­mit themselves to harvesting its re­sources sustainably.

However, the sheer abundance of the Arctic’s mineral wealth and the extreme fragility of its ecosystem will make that a complicated task.

This year, the US Geological Survey laid out some of the figures that are inspiring a frosty land-grab by governments and global energy companies. It predicted that the northern Arctic held some 90bn barrels of oil and a third of the world’s undiscovered natural gas, calling it “the largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on earth”.

The oil, more than 80 per cent of which was located offshore, was considered “technically recoverable” with current technology, according to the USGS.

“It is a region that is going to have a lot more attention,” said Jonas Garh Store, Norway’s foreign affairs minister, who observed in a 2005 speech that cold-war military calculations once governing the region were giving way to a scramble for its energy resources.

In addition to fossil fuels, the region also includes shipping routes and abundant fish resources, a scarce commodity that has become a regular source of strife among EU member states.

As the Arctic’s economic riches come into sharper focus, its environmental vulnerabilities also appear to be grow­ing more acute. Last year it recorded its thinnest cover of summer ice on record. Some scientists predict that summer ice could disappear from the Arctic altogether by 2013, decades earlier than previous estimates.

That process not only threatens to raise sea levels, but could also accelerate global warming by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Those changes are already undermining the livelihood of the Innuit and other native populations.

snip

The Arctic is a clarion call for the need to act on climate change,” Mr Store. “It is the canary in the coal mine.”