My COVID senses are tingling. I'm hoping for something small to ruin the parade like maybe just Jurassic diarrhea. But if it's a new generic mamalian HIV super big that spreads through water, we'll be in big trouble.
So while the rest of us are worrying about shrinking glaciers, Dubai is actively ice mining glaciers and shipping them to the middle of the desert so rich people can have fancy cocktails. Out-fucking-standing.
They're using only chunks that have already separated, transporting it on outgoing cargo ships that are already empty and it becomes one of the few export products for Greenland.
Weird idea, but there are a few redeeming points if you look at the full story.
I'm cool with it in that state. But my concern here is that while it starts out innocent, if demand increases, it's only a matter of time until they start mining it and chartering more ships to transport it. Especially in an economy like Greenland's.
This same pattern has been followed a thousand times in the past. Lots of instances of abusing our natural resources start out innocently.
Greenland has little to no economy because it has a population less than 60 000. And they still have to fly the ice to the middle east from Greenland which is hardly climate friendly.
Cause vs correlation, and untrue. There is no economy because there is only fish. The population dwindles because of immigration. As for flying the ice, that does not happen. Read the link.
Greenland's per capita GDP is 13th in the world. They're doing fine. Greenland has also always had a small population. It's hardly fair to call it dwindling, when it's about double today what it was in the 60s. Also a large part of the emigration is because the choices for higher education are very limited. Not because of a lack of industry or employment. As there is more than enough mining, fishing and tourism to sustain a population of 57000.
As for shipping the ice, I'm sure you aren't going to try to tell me that keeping ice refrigerated from nuuk to Dubai as well as the extra fuel used to transport (ships displace more water when they have cargo) have less of a carbon footprint than simply freezing water in Dubai.
If you look at their current sourcing it's fine. They're not cutting apart glaciers, they're gathering it from parts that have calved and will just melt apart regardless.
Greenland has a right to sell their natural resources as much as anyone else, and the sad thing is this admittedly ludicrous enterprise is more profitable for less environmental damage than most things.
The problem is all the carbon that is emitted to transport the ice from Greenland halfway around the world for no other reason than bullshit marketing.
International overseas shipping is actually pretty carbon efficient as transport goes.
Hell they're actually pretty down for efficiency improvements in shipping, to the point where people are just straight up talking about bringing back sails because... Well, why not? It's free energy.
It's not necessary but you compare this to crypto or deliberately inefficient vehicle design and it's just not something to get upset about.
People forget it's not just the shipping itself. First of all, ships just like every other vehicle need more energy to move the heavier they are. Secondly the ice needs to be cooled for most of the trip and portable coolers are real energy guzzlers. So without doing the maths transporting ice from Greenland to Dubai is much more harmful than ships with empty containers on the same way.
The first point doesn't hold though. it is always better to have a ship run with cargo than without, in terms of efficiency. Afterall the point of the ship moving is to transport cargo.
For the cooling i am also sceptical. It was common all over Europe to trade with ice cut out of glaciers and frozen lakes until the invention of the cooling pump made electrical fridges a thing. If you store the ice in somewhat well insulated containers, it will cool itself quite decently for long travels. Icecellars were common to hold Ice that was collected in winter and lasted for cooling all throughout the year even in the mediteranian areas.
I also find this business obscene, but i do not see, that it would be more harmful, than sending empty ships around the world.
It is more efficient to have a ship moving with cargo than without, but that doesn't mean there aren't additional emissions. The ratio of profit to effort is just higher because there is some profit as opposed to none. You wouldn't load a ship up with useless mass you can't sell just so you're shipping something.
Your argument is like always running the heater in your car because that way the engine heat is at least used for something. Yes, technically the efficiency goes up because more of the energy in the fuel is harnessed. But that doesn't mean the fuel usage or emissions are any lower, and in the summer the heater doesn't do you any good either.
omg I never noticed that, yea he defo has a face that looks like it would be a punching face in cliche cartoon scenes. I don't mean it as an insult just an observation lol
