Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the UAE

dhcmrlchtdj__@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 194 points –
Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the UAE
theguardian.com

Pardon?

35

The ancient ebola viruses locked in ice for thousands of years as some rich asshole takes a sip:

I think this is a plot point from the game Talos Principle. Melting arctic ice releases a virus that wipes out humanity leaving only machines to become intelligent and carry on civilization.

Edit: The game is 10 years old people and this is barely a spoiler.

It's the plot point, but also spoilers, kind of? Part of the game is discovering what happened.

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If this were a plot point in a novel I would think it too on the nose and unrealistic. This is the fucking world we live in

Countries with non-renewable resources being scalped by profiteers ...who runs out first?!? Stay tuned ...

The Great Lakes used to be a source of ice for peoples ice boxes. There were railroads built to move it to cities. In my town there was a huge building full of ice and sawdust that would keep it frozen into the summer.

There hasn't been so much as a skim of ice on the shore this year.

Sweet Tea is a southern delicacy because it was the ultimate rich plantation owner flex. Ships in the winter used to grab icebergs and drag them down to harbors which were then cut up and taken to be stored at the plantations in saw dust. Then they'd need tea from India or China, and sugar cane from the Caribbean. It was literally a global drink. Something only the richest of people would be able to obtain all the resources for to have their house slaves whip up for a visitor on a hot summer afternoon.

4 more...

Oh no, the world is now seriously doing what was a funny satirical subplot in the movie Brewster's Millions.

Movies are not meant as instructions people, cmon!

The 'Torment Nexus' meme is evergreen

This sounds like something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Something you'd read just before the Earth gets blown up.

Sure. Why the fuck not. There’s more money in killing the planet than saving it, and humanity has decided that short term profits are more important than investing in our future, so might as well go full throttle.

'It's environmentally friendly because we haven't used any energy to freeze it'

/s

I put this in the cross post, bit figure it belongs here, too:

While ridiculous, there's interesting context here.

  • Greenland has little to no economy
  • The ice is mined from ice that has already broken away from the glacier, thus not reducing any more than nature has already
  • Cargo ships bringing frozen food used to leave empty, now that same fuel is used to transport ice back instead of going to waste
  • The founder has always dreamed of a sustainable economy for Greenland
  • He is conflicted about how his work to do this in a sustainable way is being taken

Lots of gray here.

assuming that big pieces near the glacier are also being picked up, wouldn't they still help keep the temperature of the seas near the glaciers down therefore helping reduce melting?

My understanding is it's actually the opposite, due to impacts to AMOC:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29226-8

In today’s warming climate, the persistent North Atlantic cooling anomaly off the southeast coast of Greenland is thought to be caused by the accelerating input of meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and considered an indicator of a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Modelling studies suggest that increased freshwater input from Greenland has the potential to slow down AMOC in the future, thus substantially weakening heat transport to the North Atlantic and potentially driving positive ice sheet-ocean feedbacks

Basically, the melt reduces surface temps, and slows the AMOC (bad):

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/amoc.html

If the AMOC does continue to slow down, however, it could have far-reaching climate impacts. For example, if the planet continues to warm, freshwater from melting ice at the poles would shift the rain belt in South Africa, causing droughts for millions of people. It would also cause sea level rise across the U.S. East Coast.

EDIT: I am no expert here, for context.

Billionaire drinking 10000 yr old Mammoth piss? Fine by me.

Meh, let's leave the mamooth piss where it lies for now. Cocktail waiter could just pee in an ice cube tray for these guys.

Gulf states already once towed an entire glacial ice shelf to there from Antarctica for drinking water. This is peanuts in comparison.

Using glacial ice in drinks is a common practice in Greenland, and, over the years, several entrepreneurs have unsuccessfully attempted to export it.

The fjords around Greenland are usually full of icebergs that have broken off glaciers which are connected to the Greenland ice sheet.

The first stage of the shipping, from Greenland to Denmark, is, Arctic Ice argues, of low carbon-intensity, as most refrigerated shipping containers that leave Greenland would have been empty, because the country imports more frozen goods than it exports.

It has now committed to becoming fully carbon-neutral, and once the supply chain has been established and Arctic Ice’s carbon footprint calculated, all excess emissions will be calculated and compensated for …

“Helping Greenland in its green transition is actually what I believe I was brought into this world to do,” Rasmussen said. “We do have that agenda running through the company, but we may not have communicated it well enough yet.”

This is what green transitions look like!

Such horrible taste.

Wish the article sought scientific opinions on impact.