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(CNN)This week, a trillion-ton hunk of ice broke off Antarctica.
You probably know that. It was all over the Internet.
Among the details that have been repeated ad nauseam: The iceberg is nearly the size of Delaware, which prompted some fun musing on Twitter about where exactly Delaware is and how anyone is supposed to approximate the square footage of that US state. The ice, which has been named A68, represents more than 12% of the Larsen C ice shelf, a sliver on the Antarctic Peninsula. And most important: None of this has anything to do with man-made climate change.
The problem: That last detail -- the climate one -- is misleading at best.
At worst, it's wrong.
Some scientists think this has a lot to do with global warming.
I spent most of Thursday on the phone with scientists, talking to them about the huge iceberg off Antarctica and what it means. Here are my five takeaways.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/14/world/sutter-iceberg-antarctica-climate-change/index.html
[Warning: CNN autoplay video - Ed]
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday July 17 2017, @08:57AM (6 children)
Climate change news sells too.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 17 2017, @12:08PM (5 children)
Really? I googled up some graphs showing the Weather Channel has lost 1/3 of its audience since the "old days" when it showed the weather instead of documentaries and reality TV. Admittedly their non-weather content wasn't exclusively global warming focused so you can't blame all the decline on global warming coverage. Also in a smartphone and computer era with bookmarks to weather.gov there's no point in sitting thru five minutes of commercials to see tomorrows weather, anymore, so I'm surprised the number isn't zero.
Aside from relative decline, we're at the stage where less than 200K people watch the weather channel per the graphs I've seen, and by watch they mean its on in the background to generate noise while the kids get ready for school or senior citizens unconscious at nursing homes "watching" 18 hours per day (watching with their eyes closed, etc). "Sells" means something like 120 million combined printings of the six or so Twilight novels, not 200K TVs are tuned in but no one is watching. Twilight is a thousand times better seller than global warming. Its so close to zero its barely a rounding error.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday July 17 2017, @01:05PM (4 children)
Time for a new scare then. In my lifetime we've already had the Russians, a new ice age, acid rain, peak oil, global warming, climate change, isis, Trump, the Russians again and I probably forgot a few. I wonder what's next but I'm sure it will sell well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @02:47PM (1 child)
I would just assume they do sequels like is usual for movies these days. If your order was accurate, get ready for ice age scare 2 to come up next.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Monday July 17 2017, @11:57PM
It's more popular to do reboots now. You might have noticed they just rebooted Russia. Maybe next will be acid rain?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by redbear762 on Monday July 17 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)
For me, I had to add Sagan screaming about how we'd all be cannibals hunting each other through the giant snowdrifts by the time I'd graduate high school. Geez, will these folks just stop already? We're heading towards a major solar minimum and these fucks will be back to blaming people for the cold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:25PM
That's not what a solar minimum does.