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Calling this a "disaster" seems a bit overblown? It's an iceberg, drifting around is what they do, and it'll eventually melt away. South Georgia is already an

Calling this a "disaster" seems a bit overblown? It's an iceberg, drifting around is what they do, and it'll eventually melt away. South Georgia is already an exceptionally cold place, it's not like this is going to go freeze the corals at the Great Barrier Reef or something. The actual disaster here is the possibility of global warming causing the ice caps to melt en masse, but that's a different problem.

shakna 6y ago
> If the berg lodges at the island’s flank, it could remain a fixture for up to 10 years before the ice melts or breaks away, Tarling said. That could block some of the island’s 2 million penguins – including King penguins, Gentoos, Macaronis and Chinstraps – from reaching the waters to feed their young. The melting freshwater could also make the waters inhospitable for phytoplankton and other sea creatures that are crucial parts of the food chain. Melting away isn't what is expected, is what turns this into a localised disaster.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Which all doesn't matter at all because it'll recover afterwards. Framing it as an ecological disaster is just a way to engage all the people who are prone to worrying about the environment.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Do you rally think the global environment is in a process of recovery? How much damage has to happen before the global environment becomes unrecoverable? The fact is the majority of penguin species today have declining populations. Those are not recovering. A couple of million of them getting wiped out is unlikely to help reverse that downward trend.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > How much damage has to happen before the global environment becomes unrecoverable? Where the damage in question consists of dumping freshwater into the sea? It would take more water than exists in the world to do irrecoverable damage that way. Try to avoid learning about rivers.
      - cdirkx 6y ago
        > Over 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and just over 30 percent is found in ground water. Only about 0.3 percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers, and swamps [1]. Fresh water has a different density than salt water, and ice melting in the artic and antarctica is resulting in a huge influx of fresh water that can disrupt ocean currents [2]. These currents currently distribute a lot of heat around the world, and them stopping would result in places like europe getting much colder, while other regions would become much hotter (and with the warmer oceans, probably also have extremer hurricanes). [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/earths-fresh-water/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/earths-fresh-water/ [2] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulat...
        simonh 6y ago
        The gulf stream that brings warm water from the Caribbean up towards Britain is driven by dense salty water in northern latitudes sinking and flowing south, but the North Atlantic is being flooded with fresh water from Greenland and the North polar ice. Roll those dice!
    - BTCOG 6y ago
      The majority of the ozone depletion has in fact recovered. The planet is currently experiencing a greening of massive plant growth. The worst thing we do to ourselves as a species and to all other forms of life, is pollution. Chemical pollution. All life on this planet is carbon based. Plants eat carbon. Plants are in fact, up-taking more carbon via evolution.
  - shakna 6y ago
    > Which all doesn't matter at all because it'll recover afterwards. Framing it as an ecological disaster is just a way... That is a _very_ odd definition of a disaster. The Earth recovered from several mass extinction events. Does that mean that they were not in point of fact, disasters? That nothing is a disaster? It is a localised disaster. Not all disasters have to be on the global scale to have relevance.
fractallyte 6y ago
A potential disaster for the fauna in the area, that rely on a foodchain that would be disrupted by a vast iceberg. And Antarctic waters are biologically rich: https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ecosystems-and-foodwebs/ecosystems/the-marine-environment/ https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ecosystems-and-foodwebs...
dmitriid 6y ago
It's a disaster because we, humans made the world so. A few hundred years ago it wouldn't be a disaster because you'd have millions of seals and penguins everywhere. And such an impact would affect a minor fraction of a percent of a population. These days, however, even the most populous species are constantly on the brink of extinction.
- GrumpyNl 6y ago
  Aren't humans right now at the brink of extinction?
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    No, not for the foreseeable future. Global climate change os a considerable threat, but won't wipe humanity out. In case of most animal and bird species, however, they are a metaphorical iceberg away from serious existential threat.
ImprovedSilence 6y ago
I agree here. We get to see geology in action, a short time scale ice/glacier action on land and sea floor. I find the kinetics of what would happen fascinating. “Some” of the local penguins will undoubtedly perish, yes. But I dont think anyone is predicting this to be an extinction event for them, i think the overall danger to them is overblown. Not saying its not bad, but we have “rational” people here suggesting unleashing nuclear weapons to save a fraction of a small animal population....? I see this as nature in action. Our environment is constantly in flux. Yes, this was indirectly caused by human activities, but we would get to witness first hand how this changes the environment. And maybe some good would come of it.

shakna 6y ago

> If the berg lodges at the island’s flank, it could remain a fixture for up to 10 years before the ice melts or breaks away, Tarling said. That could block some of the island’s 2 million penguins – including King penguins, Gentoos, Macaronis and Chinstraps – from reaching the waters to feed their young. The melting freshwater could also make the waters inhospitable for phytoplankton and other sea creatures that are crucial parts of the food chain. Melting away isn't what is expected, is what turns this into a localised disaster.

lopmotr 6y ago
Which all doesn't matter at all because it'll recover afterwards. Framing it as an ecological disaster is just a way to engage all the people who are prone to worrying about the environment.
- simonh 6y ago
  Do you rally think the global environment is in a process of recovery? How much damage has to happen before the global environment becomes unrecoverable? The fact is the majority of penguin species today have declining populations. Those are not recovering. A couple of million of them getting wiped out is unlikely to help reverse that downward trend.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > How much damage has to happen before the global environment becomes unrecoverable? Where the damage in question consists of dumping freshwater into the sea? It would take more water than exists in the world to do irrecoverable damage that way. Try to avoid learning about rivers.
    - cdirkx 6y ago
      > Over 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and just over 30 percent is found in ground water. Only about 0.3 percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers, and swamps [1]. Fresh water has a different density than salt water, and ice melting in the artic and antarctica is resulting in a huge influx of fresh water that can disrupt ocean currents [2]. These currents currently distribute a lot of heat around the world, and them stopping would result in places like europe getting much colder, while other regions would become much hotter (and with the warmer oceans, probably also have extremer hurricanes). [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/earths-fresh-water/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/earths-fresh-water/ [2] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulat...
      - simonh 6y ago
        The gulf stream that brings warm water from the Caribbean up towards Britain is driven by dense salty water in northern latitudes sinking and flowing south, but the North Atlantic is being flooded with fresh water from Greenland and the North polar ice. Roll those dice!
  - BTCOG 6y ago
    The majority of the ozone depletion has in fact recovered. The planet is currently experiencing a greening of massive plant growth. The worst thing we do to ourselves as a species and to all other forms of life, is pollution. Chemical pollution. All life on this planet is carbon based. Plants eat carbon. Plants are in fact, up-taking more carbon via evolution.
- shakna 6y ago
  > Which all doesn't matter at all because it'll recover afterwards. Framing it as an ecological disaster is just a way... That is a _very_ odd definition of a disaster. The Earth recovered from several mass extinction events. Does that mean that they were not in point of fact, disasters? That nothing is a disaster? It is a localised disaster. Not all disasters have to be on the global scale to have relevance.

fractallyte 6y ago

A potential disaster for the fauna in the area, that rely on a foodchain that would be disrupted by a vast iceberg. And Antarctic waters are biologically rich: https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ecosystems-and-foodwebs/ecosystems/the-marine-environment/ https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ecosystems-and-foodwebs...

dmitriid 6y ago

It's a disaster because we, humans made the world so. A few hundred years ago it wouldn't be a disaster because you'd have millions of seals and penguins everywhere. And such an impact would affect a minor fraction of a percent of a population. These days, however, even the most populous species are constantly on the brink of extinction.

GrumpyNl 6y ago
Aren't humans right now at the brink of extinction?
- dmitriid 6y ago
  No, not for the foreseeable future. Global climate change os a considerable threat, but won't wipe humanity out. In case of most animal and bird species, however, they are a metaphorical iceberg away from serious existential threat.

ImprovedSilence 6y ago

I agree here. We get to see geology in action, a short time scale ice/glacier action on land and sea floor. I find the kinetics of what would happen fascinating. “Some” of the local penguins will undoubtedly perish, yes. But I dont think anyone is predicting this to be an extinction event for them, i think the overall danger to them is overblown. Not saying its not bad, but we have “rational” people here suggesting unleashing nuclear weapons to save a fraction of a small animal population....? I see this as nature in action. Our environment is constantly in flux. Yes, this was indirectly caused by human activities, but we would get to witness first hand how this changes the environment. And maybe some good would come of it.