5 ms·
Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs
- JohnClark1337 7y agoAny way I can buy one of those signs?
- qzw 7y agoI guess this is one case where they should've abbreviated the year to '20'.
- blackearl 7y agoOr in the year 20XX, like an old Megaman game
- ceejayoz 7y agoThe new estimate is 2030. Most of the ones that are left have gotten pretty small.
- travisoneill1 7y agoOr just use flip cards
- 0xdada 7y agoI imagine this is perfect for climate change deniers. Climate change is very difficult to fight because both undershooting and overshooting your predictions can come back and hurt you.
- duderific 7y agoI can only imagine the gleeful Fox News reporting once they get hold of this story.
- rainyMammoth 7y agoUnfortunately climate change became a political stance more than a science. It is now extremely difficult to get straight facts from both sides of this debate. Both sides feel like thy need to completely overstate and exaggerate the facts in order to create fear, urgency and hate for the other side.
- maxerickson 7y agoThere's not really 2 sides to the debate over on the science side.
- blowski 7y agoThere is serious debate on the science side about the extent to which we can do anything about it. From what I've read, some think yes, others think yes but only by reducing population and living like it's 1563, and others think it's already too late. These arguments mostly rest on opinions about technologies like carbon capture.
- lwhalen 7y agoIt's not nearly as clear-cut as one might hope. Cliff Mass, a respected University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, is a noted 'skeptic' of the urgency of climate change, at least the anthropogenic causes thereof. I've heard of others, but he's the one that comes closest to mind.
- jdminhbg 7y agoI'd only say Mass is a skeptic of the shrillest, dumbest climate change predictions: the kind you get in the local alt-weekly, rather than the kind you get in actual scientific papers. Here's his most recent summary of his views, specifically how they apply locally: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-science-based-approach-to-dealing.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-science-based-appro...
- powowow 7y agoIt's really fucking clear-cut from a risk management point of view.
- ljm 7y agoIt's a ridiculously uneven playing field that, like too many things, has practically become a sport with two sides supporting their own team. "If you're in any way even slightly wrong, we're right." Denial mixed with pride is a powerful drug and you see it in action everywhere; the amount of energy we expend on avoiding an uncomfortable truth, be it unrequited love, losing a loved one, or being found to be wrong in an argument. It doesn't really feel like we're fighting for the survival of our humanity. Maybe just prolonging our own individual existence so we don't have to deal with change, our beloved children be damned.
- Karunamon 7y agoI'd say this goes beyond being "slightly wrong" and into being outright fearmongering. If the science doesn't support a deadline, then you don't pull one out of thin air while passing it off as a scientific conclusion. To do otherwise is dishonest, even if you think you're doing it for noble ends.
- ljm 7y agoWe're just generally bad at estimating though, right? It's not just for climate change. Both nuclear fusion and the depletion of fossil fuels have been a good 50 years off now, for pretty much my entire three-decade lifetime. The estimates might well be genuine at the time of publication, but our response to them will make the estimates inaccurate. Maybe all we're managing is to maintain equilibrium rather than positive progress. I don't assume intentional dishonesty here because the risk of being completely discredited is way too high.
- Karunamon 7y ago>I don't assume intentional dishonesty here because the risk of being completely discredited is way too high. We're talking about the prediction "These glaciers will be gone by 2020". And I'm not going to subject myself to a bunch of science denier sites to come back with a list of other failed predictions, but there are quite a few of them. Ones that are far more dire and breathless than a tourist trap going away. If there's a risk of being discredited, it doesn't appear to apply to this topic. Intentional dishonesty? Nah, this is more like depraved indifference. There are no consequences for speaking out one's ass, and most attempts to enforce those consequences socially gets one branded as a "denier".
- egdod 7y agoIt seems like a pretty strong argument if the models are this unreliable.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoYou could nail it every time and they'd still deny it. Look at flat Earthers.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIt's 2020 and the glaciers are still there. Do you deny they still exist? Making predictions for things like climate on a year to year basis is a recipe for failure. The scale of the entire system is too large for predictions of such accuracy and do far more harm than good. "Soon" would have been a fine word to use here. Going with 2020 was just asking for a hit in credibility.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoSaying "soon" is fodder for deniers as well. My point stands; they'll always deny it up until they're boiling in their own sweat.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoSimple solution: stop making predictions with a degree of claimed accuracy that doesn't exist. There's no good reason to put a deadline such as 2020 on a prediction except as an attempt to imply a degree of certainty that doesn't exist. Climate change skeptics exist for many reasons and these poorly thought out predictions just feed into them.
- bavell 7y agoThis x1000. Stop giving them ammunition to further muddy the waters!
- Johnny555 7y agoI think the reason is to imply the sense of urgency that does exist - whether the 7000 year old glaciers melt in one decade or two, that's still a warning that the climate is warming.
- awb 7y agoRight but OC's comment still stands: state the uncertainty rather than project certainty. "Glaciers are projected to disappear between 2020 and 2030 based on current emission trends" would still be alarming.
- bavell 7y agoExactly, you don't need to twist the facts to maintain the degree of urgency. Just needs the right framing. "This glacier likely won't survive long enough for your kids/grandkids to see themselves"
- beerandt 7y agoWell if we're going to still claim it's science, there needs to be a measurable range stated. Being over ambiguous just to be right can be just as misleading as overstating certainty. (Think Nostradamus type claims.)
- ThomPete 7y agoCan we please stop this absurd idea of "climate change deniers". No one is denying that the climate is changing. It always have and it always will. The discussion is about how much, how big a problem it is, how much of it is because of us and to what extent we can/should do anything about it. That's the actual debate. Calling someone a climate change denier is a cheap and sloppy shot at trying to lump a much more complex discussion into a simple pro/con.
- minikites 7y agoIt's changing a lot, it's a big problem, it's almost entirely because of humans, and we should do everything we can. https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- wolco 7y agoShould we do everything we can? A mass killing would reduce gases is that on the table? Let's agree to stop dealing in absolutes
- minikites 7y agoIt must be easy to argue with an inanimate straw-man.
- bureaucrat 7y agoYou don't know what earth's temperature was back then. And you're comparing the "estimated average" 20,000 BCE to 1800 to "the recorded temperatures" of 1800~ with a raw graph? And "coincidentally" earth's temperature changes dramatically after 1850s? God, no wonder why some people believe strange things.
- ThomPete 7y agoYou see that change in the dotted to solid line down in the end? Do you know why that is? That's the difference between temperature averaged over thousands of years and then suddenly measuring year over year. If you think that's a reasonable way of showing temperature changes, then I guess we have very different standards for what we consider evidence.
- zacharytelschow 7y agoI like the part where global warming bloviators cry the sky is falling and make exact predictions then when it doesn't occur insult those that disagree and say they don't understand science. Wouldn't a long string of failed predictions be indicative of failure to understand...?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago> Wouldn't a long string of failed predictions be indicative of failure to understand...? No, the number of failures is completely meaningless, just as the number of successes is. The only thing that is relevant is the ratio of success vs. failure, somehow weighted appropriately based on the certainty claimed for the prediction and to correct for duplicated predictions.
- take_a_breath 7y ago==like the part where global warming bloviators cry the sky is falling== I wonder if this comment will contain any bias? ==Wouldn't a long string of failed predictions be indicative of failure to understand...?== Climate change deniers have a long string of failed predictions [1]. Would you say that is indicative of a failure to understand? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/dec/19/checkmate-how-do-climate-science-deniers-predictions-stack-up https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/dec/1...
- ravenstine 7y agoRepeatedly telling people that the sky is falling in N years, only for it to not happen(perhaps in that time scale), doesn't help at all. I've heard some say that people need to be scared in order to convince them to do something, but clearly it hasn't worked. It just comes off as the doomsday that cried wolf.
- sgt101 7y agoHow about telling them that Australia is on fire now? Doomsday for lots of Kangeroos and other animals, no wolves in Oz though.
- ravenstine 7y agoIf you want to tell people that, you ought to be sure that global warming actually has a significant impact. I don't know about Australia, but I know that the vast majority of fires in the US are caused directly by humans. Something like 90+% of them are started artificially(not by lightning strikes or something along those lines), which is kinda sad. But is climate change necessarily making the situation worse? How great would the Australia fires be if this was the year 2000? https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89757/people-cause-most-us-wildfires https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89757/people-cause-... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/27/517100594/whats-the-leading-cause-of-wildfires-in-the-u-s-humans https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/27/517100594... Are the fires worse because of global warming? Kinda hard for me to say with certainty, but I doubt it makes that big of a difference at this point.
- beerandt 7y agoMarsupials are proof that Australia's climate has been hostile for a long time. Eucalyptus trees are evolved to make oil that volatizes in heat, and makes the atmosphere of entire valleys combustible in the dry season. Australia being on fire is just Australia.
- deith 7y agoThat's weird, I'm pretty sure in the 80s I read that by 2020 the Earth would be a giant ball of smoldering fire
- bregma 7y agoI'm pretty sure in the '70s I read the Earth would be a big ball of ice, but it's OK since if we didn't nuke ourselves the overpopulation will have killed us all off.
- zacharytelschow 7y agoYep. The doomsdayers have a pretty impressive track record of being wrong. They're getting better with their marketing, at least.
- throwaway_tech 7y agoIndoctrination has always been fairly solid in the US through the public schools systems, its only natural the budgets continue to increase and they get better and better at it. As a elementary school kid in the late 80's early 90's our school had everything from guest speaks, to posters, to t-shirts for everything from: -hold in the o-zone layer -D.A.R.E. -AIDs -nuclear bomb test drills It seemed one day over night the O-zone layer posters went away and now it was global warming. And sure all of that may make sense in terms of maybe a science class, but this was more of a general lets not teach and indoctrinate. Plus the AIDs stuff always seemed weird, teaching about sex/needles to kids as young as 6. I wouldn't be surprised if that all went away as well for the new topic de jure. I think DARE was also finally pulled from schools and had all kinds of other scandals surrounding the programs that were exposed.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- shadowgovt 7y agoIt's sad when people underestimate the amount of work that was done both to find a path through the threat of MAD-style militarization and the pressure of human population on the global food supply. Neither of these worst-case-scenarios were avoided by chance. They were avoided by the hard work of decades of politicians and scientists. The world was a single soldier executing a single order away from a superpower-scale nuclear launch at least one time (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831). Farming process improvement nearly tripled the yield of existing land in the past half-century (https://ourworldindata.org/exports/global-land-spared-as-a-result-of-cereal-yield-improvements_v2_850x600.svg https://ourworldindata.org/exports/global-land-spared-as-a-r...). We do people a disservice to assume that just because we didn't personally solve a problem, the problem either didn't need to be solved or wasn't solved by human effort.
- bureaucrat 7y agofear-mongering much?
- breakyerself 7y agoWut?
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoBeaver Lake in Vancouver's Stanley Park was predicted to fill in and become a meadow in a couple thousand years. Then it was predicted to be filled by 2020. But it's not. It might be soon. In ten years or maybe a hundred years. We're just really bad at predicting such things accurately. In the case of Beaver Lake, it'll probably get dredged and predictions will become moot.
- zamadatix 7y agoWas hoping for more detail on the predicted vs actual change beyond what the headline could tell me. Or even if they have a new prediction. Edit: This table is helpful https://www.usgs.gov/data-tools/area-named-glaciers-glacier-national-park-gnp-and-flathead-national-forest-fnf-including https://www.usgs.gov/data-tools/area-named-glaciers-glacier-...
- travisoneill1 7y agoNote that the percentages in the table are misleading as they show decline from the Little Ice Age, not from recent levels.
- Johnny555 7y agoApparently the new date is 2030: The original estimates of the timing of glacier melt were based on two things: modeled projections of the glaciers’ response to warming, and direct observations of glacial retreat. A 2003 report was based on modeling a scenario of doubling pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 levels by 2030, which would have melted the park’s major glaciers – and presumably the minor ones, too – by 2030. https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/fact-check-no-the-glaciers-are-not-growing-in-glacier-national-park/ https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/fact-check-no...
- aazaa 7y agoAnd that article links to the USGS site with paired images: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/repeat-photography-project https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/repeat-photograp...
- zamadatix 7y agoAnother study from 2010 seems to have given 2080 https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers... It seems we may have quite a bit of understanding to gain regarding glaciers. I'm not sure if the 2010 study is more reasonable (I'm no expert) but I think enough time has elapsed in the 2003 study to say that the estimations in it didn't pan out based on the observed values in 2015.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- narrator 7y agoBack in 2004 the Pentagon predicted dooooooooooooooom by 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.t... "A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world."
- travisoneill1 7y ago"Yes Mr. President, as you can see from this report, we are clearly going to need a much bigger budget!"
- starpilot 7y agoI read the original report, it sounded like they knew that that magnitude of disaster was really unlikely, but they wanted to tell a story of "this is how bad it could be." It was akin to describing the outcome of a large asteroid impact.
- Torgo 7y agoWhat was the park's plan for 2020? Close down? Change the name of the park? Without the glaciers, what would be the draw?
- falcolas 7y agoGlacier or no, it's a beautiful piece of nearly pristine land. I imagine they'd simply find other attractions (there are several possibilities) or focus on the hows and whys of the glacier's disappearance. If you haven't, I recommend visiting. If you can't visit, have a look at some of the pictures taken by those who have.
- sunkenvicar 7y agoIt’s impossible for a layman to determine how much climate change is caused by humans.
- commandlinefan 7y agoApparently impossible for scientists, too.
- throwawaysea 7y agoA more effective sign that would be more enduring would be one featuring a recent photo next to a photo from 40 years ago at each location, to make the change very real.
- r00fus 7y agoThis would be the best. Also maybe a "see how the park looked 10/20/50/100 years ago" exhibit to emphasize the loss.
- landryraccoon 7y agoIs there an investment fund that is designed to specifically invest in companies that have solid plans in place for mitigating or taking advantage of climate change, or taking short positions against industries or regions that are at risk and totally unprepared? Examples would be shorting Florida coastal real estate, shorting flood insurance, long on agricultural and real estate investments that depend on moving growing zones and seasons, etc.. The most undeniable evidence for climate change would be if people are making a ton of money from accurately anticipating its results. I’d invest heavily in such a fund, if it existed. One cool thing about this is that if you don’t believe in climate change you would want this too - you should bet against the fund and take the money of people like myself if you are right. Since I believe climate change is real, I would happily put my money on the other side of that bet.
- ve55 7y agoThere are some clean energy ETFs such as $PZD (INVESCO EXCHANGE TRADED FD TR CLEANTECH ETF) that may be decent investments, but if you have specific environmental predictions, you might want to invest 'as close' to them as possible, e.g. via weather derivatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_derivative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_derivative or second-order effects, rather than things further down the line of causation
- aazaa 7y ago> The most undeniable evidence for climate change would be if people are making a ton of money from accurately anticipating its results. I’d invest heavily in such a fund, if it existed. Rather than shorting, another option might be to buy undeveloped land that should appreciate as climate change predictions come true. For example, the land in the Canadian territories might be an option if you believe thawing will occur. Or possibly further south in the northern US. If your model says rain patterns will change, invest in desert real estate in those areas set to get the most rain.
- etrautmann 7y agoThe unfortunate consequence of such an attitude is that it creates further economic incentives to not attempt to mitigate the damage from or slow down climate change
- vmh1928 7y agowhile not a prediction as to an exact date (since it's based on historical information,) these pictures and accompanying article provide some guidance. Also a link to a geospatial model used for two of the glaciers. https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm
- vmh1928 7y agomore information from last summer here. Reference to a geospatial model used for a couple of the glaciers plus historical / modern photos showing physical changes in glaciers. https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm
- mmcgaha 7y agoWarnings of impending problems serve a real purpose even if they miss the mark. We absolutely want folks thinking about environmental responsibility, and the consequences of their choices. Unfortunately, some of the more doom and gloom predictions can send young people down the wrong path. I remember listening to 10 in 2010 and imagining that I would never make it to 40. Well here we are in 2020, and somewhere along the way, I had to learn to stop letting the grim predictions of others dictate my life decisions. I do not think we should stop caring about the future of civil and environmental issues, but we also need become financially secure, get married, and raise a family without worry of what may come.
- ConsiderCrying 7y agoI agree and I'd hope to see the information tweaked based on latest research, which is what they're doing. Hope other spots with similar plaques and signs follow suit. Just so skeptics have less to argue with, not just entering the park and going 'Ha, see, signs in this place are wrong so, clearly, climate science is wrong.' Yes, true, our estimates are changing on the regular but that's better than just pretending like the problem doesn't exist or hoping it's small. Even if they change signs to read 'will melt in 2050', that's still terrifying. So I do hope they put up new data soon.
- ThomPete 7y agoIt's not a question about whether climate science is wrong. There are plenty of observations that are pretty well established. The problem is that the media only portraits the most catastrophic of the claims. But a lot of climate science is speculation not a demonstration and we have to be much better at calming down and looking at different things with different certainties rather than just claiming the sky is falling. Even the IPCC report is scaling back on some of the more alarmist rethoric. There isn't to my knowledge any scientifically demonstrated consequences of climate change we don't know how to deal with. That should be a good thing yet somehow we've end up in trench wars.
- um_ya 7y agoHow much research has been done into the positive effects of global warming? More rainfall, warmer waters, more tropical climate. It's hard to believe these things might be bad. Has no one done this kind of research before?
- falcolas 7y agoA National Geographic piece on Glacier National Park. You can see some "before" and "after" pictures of the last hundred-ish years in the first minute of the 3.5 minute video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4I8tYnxP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4I8tYnxP4 Are they gone? No. Are they going? Sure looks like it. I recommend visiting (in the summer), regardless of the glacier status. It's beautiful. EDIT: Another site with picture differences, with a slider view window. Care of the National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm
- r00fus 7y agoSomewhere on Facebook and/or Twitter, climate deniers will use this reporting as a reason why they think it's a "hoax" that we're in a crisis.
- RickJWagner 7y agoPer the National Review: The park is reportedly replacing the sign with a more nebulous and less falsifiable edict: “When [the glaciers] will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.”