Antarctic Ice Shelf Tipping

A couple of side by side articles in the Wa Po tell us all we need to know about Climate and Capital. One piece explains the results of a new study published by the journal NatureClimateChange showing “widespread increases in ice-shelf melting, including in regions crucial for ice-sheet stability.” This will continue regardless of human's attempts to limit emissions. All this warming will occur at a pace three times faster than originally forecast. This follows a pattern where newer studies find older ones conservative in their estimates of warming and its effects. You almost never hear them say "Hey, it's not as bad as we thought!" The article next to this one is about Chevron Oil buying Hess Oil, a sign that fossil fuel profits are expected to remain strong. This follows the recent purchase of shale driller Pioneer by Exxon a few days ago. The Big Boys are placing their bets and a few extra feet of sea level rise by 2100 is not their concern. Of course, the melting of the ice shelf and the Thwaites "doomsday" glacier will happen faster and the sea level rise greater if we burn those fossil fuels like mad. Which looks like the plan. “It appears we may have lost control of the West Antarctic ice shelf melting over the 21st century,” Kaitlin Naughten, the study’s lead author and an ocean modeler with the British Antarctic Survey, told reporters in a media briefing. This is a classic case of having pushed polar ice systems past a "tipping point". But if you own Chevron or Exxon stocks you're looking pretty. Use the dividends to buy property inland, on some higher ground.