July 11, 2019: Bad News For Greenland's Ice Sheet - Also for Bees

 

7/11/19: Researchers from the University of Wyoming report unexpected developments with the Greenland ice sheet. That sheet, in most places, is more than 1.2 miles thick. 

In an effort to reach Trump fans let’s reduce complex science to: 

 

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“This is a crazy statistic, which is not good for Greenland or sea-level rise.” 

Nathan Maier, a leading author of the study

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If you’d prefer to be a little better informed, however, Time magazine explains the growing danger: 

“Mass loss from Greenland’s [ice sheet] has been increasing and over the last decade is at its highest level ever recorded,” [Nathan] Maier [a leading author of the latest study] said. “There have been some really cool papers to come out recently that make this clear. One by Mouginot et al. in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the mass loss over the last five decades and found that it increased six-fold. This is a crazy statistic, which is not good for Greenland or sea-level rise.”

 

Furthermore, this June, the ice sheet experienced a record melt event, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

 

Do not expect the president to tweet about the findings of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 

It is highly unlikely he knows it exists.

 

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SPEAKING OF ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE, we learn that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided to suspend its survey on bee populations, “pausing data collection for one of the few remaining government sources tracking bees and their rapid decline.” 

Bees pollinate one third of all U.S. crops, including blueberries, almonds, apples, and squash, and add an estimated $15 billion in value to America’s annual agricultural output. But if the USDA kept reporting on the drop in bee population, Americans might worry about overuse of pesticides and Trump’s pals in the pesticide industry might not keep pouring donations into GOP campaign coffers. 

As The Hill explains, “The USDA has said it was forced to suspend data collection on bees due to last year’s budget cuts. In announcing the move, the department said the decision ‘was not made lightly but was necessary given available fiscal and program resources’ after the cuts.” 

Trump, of course, does not care about bees or the environment. He cares about the holding properties of hair spray.