SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Massive white tarpaulins are being used to protect Alpine glaciers from melting over the summer.
In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993.
Once the ski season is over and cable cars are berthed, conservationists race to try and stop it melting by using white tarps that block the sun's rays.
"This area is continuously shrinking, so we cover as much of it as possible," explains Davide Panizza, 34, who heads the Carosello-Tonale company that does the work.
From around 30,000 square metres (36,000 square yards) covered in 2008 when the project began, his team now places 100,000 square metres under wraps.
The tarps themselves are "geotextile tarpaulins that reflect sunlight, maintaining a temperature lower than the external one, and thus preserving as much snow as possible," according to Panizza.
Installation and removal of the tarps takes approximately six weeks each to complete. Similar systems are in place on a few Austrian glaciers as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @08:35AM (7 children)
For those who don't understand what's going on, this "converation effort" is to keep the glaciers in as premium as possible condition for skiers.
If you want something to happen, attach a financial incentive to it. Same reason I think the solution to global warming, if such a solution is ever necessary, will be atmospheric scrubbing. Prices for it continue to plummet both in real numbers (technology improvements have gotten it down to ~$100/ton scrubbed) but also in relative terms. The economy is growing way faster than atmospheric concentrates are. That means each year scrubbing becomes, as a percent of the economy, a smaller and smaller cost. But if we ever decide getting greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere is urgent enough to demand direct action (as opposed to the indirect actions of today) there will be a line of companies ready to take it on.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @11:11AM (5 children)
Until you realize the profits that were made from burning fossil is what caused the problem in the first place.
Take the money from everybody to pay for it, just not from the fossil fuel industry, give them subsidies instead [soylentnews.org].
Fucking armchair economy strategists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @12:01PM (4 children)
Solutions having problems is hardly some new thing. Why did we start the massive harvesting of fossil fuels? Because people were tired of getting around on horses and foot and everybody wanted one of those shiny new horseless carriages for themselves. And so businesses emerged to provide something practically unthinkable - each and every single human being able to consume, on average, about 2 liters of oil per day - every day - for decades. It's a remarkable achievement, in the shadow of what will be required to scrub the atmosphere and indeed that industry may ultimately end up causing unforseen consequences we can't yet divine which can, in turn, be solved if necessary - and so forth on out, indefinitely.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday June 22 2020, @01:36PM
How right you are!
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Force_of_Nature_(episode) [fandom.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2020, @04:24PM (2 children)
Oh, God, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing. (grin)
How can I believe you? Letting aside you're incapable of divine, you forgot to add "and at exponential rate".
Look, capitalism just doesn't work without exponential grow. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2020, @04:01AM (1 child)
Your post is a sad reflection of internet discourse in general:
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 23 2020, @04:52AM
Your post reflects your poor state of pun disability (grin)
Also, let me introduce you to the punishing convention of grinning [soylentnews.org].
As the author has put it, its totally your fault for taking me seriously and it's up to you if you want to waste your time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2020, @10:49AM
Both restrained and unrestrained capitalism have methods of 'regulatory capture'. One is politicians deciding so their favored capitalists corner the markets, and the other is the capitalists deciding the politicians so their favorite policies corner the markets for them.
Since there isn't a free market involved in many of the 'global warming' instigating industries, the actual costs of damage caused by them isn't obvious. The real solution here would be an 'emissions cost' on every factory, wit both pumps and an environmental station nearby to check if the output of the factor(y|ies) matches the expected average dissipation factor for the adjacent regions.
As it is right now, much of the pollution is being subsidized by governments worldwide in order to have an economic advantage over each other but at long term consequences to us all.
Cherry picking your situations doesn't make the larger thesis globally true.