We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore LappĂ©, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, July 16, 2012

The wet side of Greenland

Click here to access article by Neven from Arctic Sea Ice Blog.

This blogger has put together some dramatic data and on-the-scene videos, like the one below, to show that the melting of the ice sheet in Greenland is accelerating and the resulting local effects of this melting. (You will need to learn a new term--albedo: a measure of reflectivity.) This scene in Greenland is occurring with increasing frequency as a result of diminishing albedo of the ice sheet.