Global Warming and the Arctic Sea-Ice Extent

The National Snow and Ice Center has Daily Images on the Sea-Ice Extent (Sea-Ice Extent is defined as Area of Ocean with at least 15% Sea Ice).





You might already be familiar with the "The accelerating loss of the Arctic sea-ice" problem which the graph above makes fairly clear. As mentioned in an earlier post, the Climate Code Red Publication (pdf) released in February 2008 describes in detail the problem of the loss of the Arctic sea-ice (one of the many serious problems described in the publication). As per the report, the loss in summer of all eight million square kilometres of Arctic sea-ice now seems inevitable, and may occur as early as 2010, a century ahead of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections. For details, I highly recommend that you make the effort to read the Climate Code Red publication (pdf). If you are a Global Warming skeptic, it might just manage to convince you that the problem is indeed VERY severe.

A linear increase in heat in the Arctic Ocean will result in a non-linear, and accelerating, loss of sea ice. --Norbert Untersteiner, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, July 2006

... the primary issue is whether global warming will reach a level such that ice sheets begin to disintegrate in a rapid, non-linear fashion on West Antarctica, Greenland or both. Once well under way, such a collapse might be impossible to stop, because there are multiple positive feedbacks. In that event, a sea level rise of several meters at least would be expected. --James Hansen, Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

The water supplies of dozens of major cities around the world are at risk from a previously ignored aspect of global warming. Within the next few decades rising sea levels will pollute underground water reserves with salt… Long before the rising tides flood coastal cities, salt water will invade the porous rocks that hold fresh water… The problem will be compounded by sinking water tables due to low rainfall, also caused by climate change, and rising water usage by the world’s growing and increasingly urbanised population. --Fred Pearce, English author and journalist specializing in Global Environment issues

Investment Theory of Politics

Thomas Ferguson is an American political scientist and author who studies and writes on politics and economics, often within an historical perspective. He is a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Thomas Ferguson has written an interesting book titled "Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems" (1995). In this book, Ferguson breaks completely with traditional voter centered accounts of party politics. In its place he outlines an "investment approach," in which powerful investors, not unorganized voters, dominate campaigns and elections. In effect, Democrats and Republicans are merely the left and right wings of the "Property Party".

Few snippets from the book:

.."This does not mean that voters never influence public policy or even that they do not constantly do so. It does imply, however, that their influence on state policy is highly variable and uncertain. In a political system like that of the United States, the costs associated with the control of the state effectively screen out the bulk of the electorate from sustained political intervention".

and

The policy agenda is attuned to the concerns of the investors and it is distinctly one-sided resulting in "increasingly radical versions of "laissez faire" economics...demands for tax "relief," freedom from regulation, cuts in social welfare expenditures, labor cost reductions and tighter control of increasingly decentralized production systems"

and most telling:

"..on all issues affecting the vital interests that major investors have in common, no party competition will take place"

For those interested, a preview of the book can be found here