5800sq km iceberg breaks off Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf

Which government?

Rewind to 1990. Suppose the U.S. government takes the hard-line position that climate change risks being a civilization-ending nightmare and has to be stopped ASAP. Other countries are going to know that going into negotiations. What exactly is the proposition to other countries to get them to dramatically decrease emissions? If we even got them to agree to it, they'd stripmine the U.S. economy in return, and wouldn't even leave us with our shirts. That's on top of the severe short-term self-imposed economic hardship of cutting hydrocarbon usage.

Granted, I don't believe for a moment that most conservative politicians have the appropriate level of concern for global warming, or the broader environment, or the wide variety of failure modes of capitalism in the realms of non-excludable and "club" (excludable but non-rival) goods in general. But assume for the sake of argument that they did have sufficient concern, or better yet, let's say the Green Party controls the House, Senate, and Executive. I don't understand what strategy the environmental left would have the U.S. use in international relations 10, 20, 30 years ago to try to mitigate environmental damage.

http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/

The bigger question is how the remaining shelf breaks apart; people are not sure if its more stable or more unstable after this calving; with huge ice areas its not always easy to predict.

I wouldn't worry about Antarctica melting. It's ice is growing at the moment.

Even if 90% of people on earth decided to recycle and go vegan and drive an electric car, it wouldn't make any difference as long as that 10% is using un-clean infrastructure (container ships are said to produce the pollution of millions of cars, we still burn coal for most of our energy needs, etc).

Since globalization billions of people have gotten out of poverty. As this trend continues the strain on the environment similarly increases. Want to genuinely help,the environment? Have fewer kids.

Think of this, the average environmentally conscious consumer still contributes massive amounts of trash and still relies on resources extracted from countries with mild environmental standards.

I no longer own a car, I bike everywhere.

I work remote 100%.

I do not eat beef if I can help it anymore.

I use the train for long distance personal travel. I still fly when it is for my company, though.

I take transit when biking would be too slow.

I signed up for my city's green energy program. I pay more to receive 30% of my energy use from wind farms.

I cancelled Amazon Prime.

I buy items locally as much as possible.

I avoid online shopping if possible.

All of my food comes from local, small producers.

Cutting consumption behavior down has, unsurprisingly, saved me a lot of money and these behaviors are reducing the amount of carbon I emit.

My family turns down the thermostat in the winter, and uses no air conditioning during the summer.

I don't eat beef, and eat relatively little meat in general.

I play alcohol powered musical instruments.

I vote. ;-)

But I think that trying to achieve widespread collective outcomes by encouraging individuals to voluntarily modify their behavior has never worked -- it is how I define "utopian." Society can accomplish things collectively when we have a mechanism for engaging in collective effort such as governments. While I have no illusions that governments will lead us to a perfect society either, I think that if we ever manage to address global warming, it will be through the actions of governments.

- I live in a small apartment block that is very insulted and has a lot of natural light

- don't own a car and use bike / public transport

- work 100% remote

- I compensate CO2 when flying, even when for business

- I try to have a minimal set of possessions, and buy second-hand if possible (and am really aggressive about ad blocking, don't watch commercial TV)

- I got a vasectomy to not have children

- I try to write and engage in social media about it, read the primary literature

- Donate to reforestation / tree planting initiatives

But it's all bullshit isn't it? I doesn't change a damn thing. The fixation on the idea that individual consumer behavior will make a noticeable impact is laughable. The only way to make a difference is by changing the companies and business that pollute in the first place, not the people who buy the stuff. And that means taxing, de-investing, subsidizing alternatives, and for the love-of stop subsidizing fossil fuels. But that's never going to happen.

I mean even putting a stupid sail on cargo ships would cut down pollution more than the CO2 anything you and I could ever do. Or if we hike up the prices of transport considerably (so fruits from bloody Africa don't cost 20 cents in Northern Europe) we can change our entire logistics pipeline.

>'Andrew Shepherd, professor of Earth Observation at the University of Leeds, agreed. “Everyone loves a good iceberg, and this one is a corker,” he said. “But despite keeping us waiting for so long, I’m pretty sure that Antarctica won’t be shedding a tear when it’s gone because the continent loses plenty of its ice this way each year, and so it’s really just business as usual!”' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-antarcti...