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A Dubai firm's dream of towing icebergs from the Antarctic to the Arabian Peninsula could face some titanic obstacles.
Where many see the crumbling polar ice caps as a distressing sign of global warming, the National Advisor Bureau Limited sees it as a source of profit, and a way of offsetting the effects of climate change in the increasingly sweltering Gulf.
The firm has drawn up plans to harvest icebergs in the southern Indian Ocean and tow them 9,200 kilometers (5,700 miles) away to the Gulf, where they could be melted down for freshwater and marketed as a tourist attraction.
"The icebergs are just floating in the Indian Ocean. They are up for grabs to whoever can take them," managing director Abdullah al-Shehi told The Associated Press in his Dubai office. He hopes to begin harvesting them by 2019.
[...] The firm would send ships down to Heard Island, an Australian nature reserve in the southern Indian Ocean, where they would steer between massive icebergs the size of cities in search of truck-sized chunks known as growlers. Workers would then secure them to the boats with nets and embark on a yearlong cruise to the United Arab Emirates.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:01AM (6 children)
There are diseases hidden in ice, and they are waking up [bbc.com]
In the early 20th Century alone, more than a million reindeer died from anthrax. It is not easy to dig deep graves, so most of these carcasses are buried close to the surface, scattered among 7,000 burial grounds in northern Russia.
scientists have discovered intact 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in Alaska's tundra. Smallpox and the bubonic plague are also likely buried in Siberia.
In February 2017, NASA scientists announced that they had found 10-50,000-year-old microbes inside crystals in a Mexican mine. /../ Despite this, the bacteria have somehow become resistant to 18 types of antibiotics, including drugs considered to be a "last resort" for fighting infections. In a study published in December 2016, researchers found that the bacteria, known as Paenibacillus sp. LC231, was resistant to 70% of antibiotics and was able to totally inactivate many of them.
in a 2011 study scientists extracted DNA from bacteria found in 30,000-year-old permafrost in the Beringian region between Russia and Canada. They found genes encoding resistance to beta-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics.
So far it seems just familiar diseases has made a reappearance. But that antibiotic resistance genes could transfer to modern day bacterial genes.
Another danger is that as Earth warms northern countries will become more susceptible to outbreaks of "southern" diseases like malaria, cholera and dengue fever.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:00AM (5 children)
So far it seems just familiar diseases has made a reappearance.
Routine vaccination against smallpox stopped in 1972. I don't think anywhere in the world currently vaccinates against this pathogen - why, if it no longer is a threat? The carnage would be - impressive. It doesn't have to be some ancient unheard of disease. You can't make billions of vaccines faster than millions can die.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:52AM (2 children)
At least there is a vaccine and the infection rate is not something out of a sci-fi movie.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 18 2017, @02:30PM (1 child)
Yeah, but there's a lead time in global-scale manufacturing and inoculation. Ramping up to that scale and distributing everything again would take years. It wouldn't be the end of civilization, but the death toll worldwide would certainly be counted in the millions if not more.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @04:45PM
It certainly would be deadly event but once there is a vaccine. It's quite straightforward to combat any pathogen. The alternative is to rely on symptoms and quarantine whole countries and let's not think about international trade. All the while researchers have maybe to work for years without using proper equipment because of said quarantine. Access to qualified people may also be affected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @01:31PM (1 child)
The US Military currently vaccinates against it, I know I received the vaccine before I deployed. The gov also keeps a stockpile of smallpox vaccine to inoculate everyone if it hits the fan. In fact after I got out of the army I made some good money donating plasma because I had been vaccinated for smallpox. They used it to make new vaccines.
https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/stockpile/index.htm [cdc.gov]
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 18 2017, @02:27PM
The gov also keeps a stockpile of smallpox vaccine
Pretty sure that stockpile is spoken for. It's not some kid in Rwanda that is going to get it. But it's nice to know that while the US is keeping the poison they're also keeping the antidote...