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posted by n1 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the on-the-rocks dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 18 2017, @02:30PM (1 child)

    by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday May 18 2017, @02:30PM (#511690)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @04:45PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday May 18 2017, @04:45PM (#511730) Journal

    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.