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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: 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...