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SWIM FOR YOUR LIVES
Attention, Manhattanites and Floridians and half of the US: prepare to swim! You have no time to escape 20-foot sea rises, according to an NYT review of Mariana Gosnell’s latest:
She learns that if these seven million cubic miles of ice were defrosted by humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels, the world’s sea level would rise 20 feet, sending Florida, most of Manhattan and almost half of America’s population to swim with the fishes, literally.
Except for the smart folks who might notice water lapping around their ankles and move inland. Or to a higher floor. Speaking of smart folks, our old pal Wayne Sanderson could find himself facing the kind of dilemma with which Chinese mothers of twins are familiar. You see, Wayne is a motorcycle enthusiast—in his own words, a long-term, confirmed Ducati-nut—yet he also believes that “global warming is THE great issue facing the planet”. So how’s he going to cope with this news:
Motorcycles collectively emit 16 times more hydrocarbons, three times more carbon monoxide and a “disproportionately high” amount of other air pollutants compared to passenger cars, according to a Swiss study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology ...
Particularly worrisome are the high levels of hydrocarbons emitted by Japanese, German and Italian two-wheelers, according to the study.
Oh, no! Wayne’s going to have to choose between Ducatis and his faith in warming! I’d go for the Duke.
“baby”, not “babby”. I am not channeling Barbara Streisand.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 03:03 PM • permalinkWhat’s the problem with the Euro bikes? Are they propelled by reindeer farts?
Posted by andycanuck on 2005 12 26 at 03:04 PM • permalinkActually, if I didn’t screw up the math too badly, thawing 7 million cubic miles of ice should be good for about 200 to 280 feet of rise in sea level (depending on how much of it ends up on former land area), which goes to show a) that these people can’t even get their doom-mongering predictions correct, and b) just how stupid and insane the premises of said doom-mongering are.
Wayne should buy some carbon credits to offset the global warming he is causing. He can get them from New Zealand. Oops, bad example. How about Paraguay?
But I have the feeling Wayne will do the right thing, and soon we will see him on a skate board.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 26 at 04:01 PM • permalinkI guess they made this study by using an old BSA Bantam and a Panhead Harley-Davidson. Modern motorcycles, particularly of the Japanese, Italian and German variety, are fuel injected and in many cases have catalytic convertors. (That’s the big box under my BMW R1100S). Vehicles with closed loop systems that get similar fuel economy would put out similar amounts of pollutants, which probably puts a lot of them up there with a highway-driven Prius. The Swiss just don’t like to see people having fun (without using mechanical watches or really long horns!).
Florida under water from a 20 foot rise in sea level? The mean elevation of the entire state is 100 feet. Sure, the low-lying areas that would be swamped, as demonstrated in the map image in this scare article from National Geographic, have most of the cities, but come on, is Miami really that great a loss? (I lived there all my life until 1999 and I say “No!”) There will be plenty of Florida left for people to run to when the giant wall of water comes. Oh wait, you mean it’s not going to happen like that?
Play with this neat drown the earth map and see where you’ll be moving! (PS: I am of the opinion that if the globe really is warming, it has very little to do with the activities of the tiny beings that crawl on its surface and much more to do with cosmic forces like solar output and the fact that we are at a later stage of thawing out from the last ice age. Really, do these people think global cooling would be better than global warming?)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 26 at 07:34 PM • permalinkWayne’s choice is clear. He must ride a Harley or a Buell!
Save the Earth! Buy American!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 26 at 09:45 PM • permalinkScrew you clowns, I live 500 feet above sea level and work aboard a ship.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2005 12 26 at 09:47 PM • permalinkMy filthy, polluting, baby seal killing Japanese motorcycle gets 25km to the litre, not bad for a 650cc.
My only regret is that I am obviously not depleting Gaia’s precious resources quickly enough. Sorry, Wayne.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 12 26 at 10:57 PM • permalinkAndrea, I went to that site. It thinks that a one-metre rise in sea level would flood all of Sydney between the harbour and Botany Bay, including the eastern suburbs, plus everything along the Parramatta river as far west as, well, Parramatta, and the north side of the harbour from North Sydney round to Manly.
This is, to put it mildly, utter nonsense. Many things can be said about the land around Sydney Harbour, but “flat” is not one that readily springs to mind.
Yeah, those cliffs look pretty tall to me in pictures—or else Australians are all about six inches tall. It could be that the map isn’t detailed enough in that area, or they didn’t check their geographical data. In any case, I didn’t say the map was gospel truth—I know just how flat Florida is along the coast and in the southern parts, so that part looks pretty accurate to me, but that’s all I know. I just thought you guys could have fun plotting out your new “beachfront property.”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 26 at 11:26 PM • permalinkThose cliffs or whatever they are called around Sydney Harbor I meant—I last saw them in the second Mission Impossible movie, those are cliffs, right?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 26 at 11:27 PM • permalink“Reporting to you live from my sinister RWDB redoubt in the Appalachian Islands…”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 26 at 11:30 PM • permalinkI haven’t seen Mission Improbable 2, so I’m trying to think where the cliffs might have been. Possibly North Head?
And yes, I wouldn’t expect the thing to be 100% accurate, but for Sydney it’s about 5% accurate.
Hi
Google Sydney Heads images and you will get some really good photos of the cliffs around Sydney Harbour. This is one of them. In the centre of the photo is North Head (I think), The Heads are the two points which form the entry to Sydney Harbour. They are pretty high. Underwater? I don’t think so!My goodness, registering and activating and logging in is sure a pain! All so I can add this, three days late and probably $3 short.
But I got curious, being a Floridian & all, wondering just how much longer I had before sharing my apartment with Aquaman.
According to the NOAA/NOS http://140.90.121/sltrends/sltrends_states?region=fl. ]Sea Level Trends[/url], sea level at my place has increased this past century at the rate of 0.79 feet/100 years. I’m about 8 feet above sea level, so I only have 800 years.
However, based on archaeological evidence, the rate of sea level increase has actually decreased quite a bit. Using information from An Atlas of Maritime Florida (by Roger C Smith, James J Miller, Sean M Kelley, Linda G Harbin of the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources. Published by University Press of Florida.) the avg rate of sea level increase, from 16,000 YBP to now, was 1.875 feet/century.
So the rate at which Floridians are drowning has actually decreased, or would have if any Floridians too stupid to move were living here 16,000 years ago. Further, the decrease in the rate at which the sea level increases has been consistent over the past 16,000 years. Maybe not linearly consistent, but consistently happening.
I am pretty sure that somewhere someone could phrase this better. . .but the point is, higher sea levels/lower Florida levels are nothing new. We know we live in a swamp - and we like it, darn it!
Posted by Persnickety on 2005 12 29 at 03:42 PM • permalink
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Well, Sanderson could have both with a jet ski or this babby. But Ducati would have to branch out, I think.