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Rich Countries Getting Bullied by the Poor at Copenhagen?

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Chris.S

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8349797.stm

My wife has been sending me updates about what her President is doing to combat "climate change" and trying to get the world interested in the imminent danger his country faces. Most of it has been humorous as well as the same tired arguments. But this really made me and my wife angry.

Could these small poor countries actually have enough clout to push larger, richer countries into making deals at Copenhagen? I'll admit I'm a bit in the dark about what's going on there, and I haven't had much interest in finding out what this "350" business is all about until this article.

(the article is very short so I haven't quoted it)

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Lets say just for a second that this is true and the melting glaciers will cause a huge increase in water levels. Well something like fifty percent of the world's population currently live within sixty kilometers of the coast. The Maldives are the least of our problems.

Now back to those glaciers... 70% of the worlds surface is covered by ocean so how much water would have to be held in those glaciers for the water levels (ignoring the water cycle for a moment and assuming that a miracle will happen and all of that water will end up in the ocean) to rise even 1 inch?

Oceanic surface area = 361,132,000 km²

I'm thinking you could probably melt every piece of ice on the planet including the stuff in my fridge and you wouldn't get enough water...

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Actually, it's like begging on a dusty street corner, and yelling at anyone who dares to throw anything less than 100 dollars in your direction.

Funny, that's almost exactly what I told my wife.

Another part to why Maldives is pushing for this is because they're worried about soil erosion, and blaming current increased soil erosion on rising water levels due to global warming. What they don't tell you is that Maldives was formed by the erosion of oceanic volcanoes into coral reefs, which continue to erode over time. This really is just a money grab for these countries.

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I'm thinking you could probably melt every piece of ice on the planet including the stuff in my fridge and you wouldn't get enough water...
Greenland is 1.71 million km² surface area with a mean thickness of 2,135 m, so 3.65 million km³ of ice. That divided by 361 million km² is 10 meters or about 33 feet. The Antarctic ice shelf contains about ten times that much ice. So that's actually a fair amount of water. But that's also a lot of thermal mass.
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Greenland is 1.71 million km² surface area with a mean thickness of 2,135 m, so 3.65 million km³ of ice. That divided by 361 million km² is 10 meters or about 33 feet. The Antarctic ice shelf contains about ten times that much ice. So that's actually a fair amount of water. But that's also a lot of thermal mass.

Okay, point taken, a little hyperbole on my part. But no one, not even the most brainwashed Al Gore acolyte is claiming that all the arctic and/or antartic ice is going to melt.

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