Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Canadian ice shelves breaking up at record speed

Researchers say ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic are breaking up and changing at an unexpectedly fast rate.

They say the region lost almost half its ice shelf extent in the last six years. This summer alone saw the Serson ice shelf almost completely disappear and the Ward Hunt shelf split in half. The ice loss equals about three billion tonnes, or about 500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

“This is our coastline changing,” says Derek Mueller, from Carleton University’s department of geography and environmental studies. “These unique and massive geographical features that we consider to be a part of the map of Canada are disappearing and they won’t come back.”

The researchers say the reason for the change is a combination of warmer temperatures and open water. The ice shelves were formed and sustained in a colder climate. The researchers say their disappearance suggests a possible return to conditions unseen in the Arctic for thousands of years.

Arctic ice shelves are old and relatively rare. They are much different from sea ice, which is typically only a few metres thick. Ice shelves can measure anywhere from 40 to 100 metres in thickness. They formed over thousands of years as a result of snow and sea ice build-up, along with glacier inflow in certain spots.

Ice shelves in Canada are usually found along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island.

Luke Copland from the University of Ottawa’s department of geography says that since the end of July, huge pieces the size of Manhattan Island have broken off and could threaten oil rigs in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

Mueller and Copland used satellite imagery to compile their research. They found ice shelves have shrunk almost every summer since 2005.

Origin
Source: CBC 

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