We humans are to blame for Antarctic meltdown

Deniers of global warming need to look at the giant iceberg now adrift for proof of climate change

In the faraway seas of the Antarctic, a giant iceberg — in length it is the distance from Abu Dhabi to Dubai — is slowly melting, adding its mass to the sea. The iceberg “calved” or broke away from the Larsen Ice Shelf, a long sliver that reaches out from the remote icelocked continent towards the southerly tip of South America.

For the past months, Antarctic researchers had been monitoring a lengthening crack in the ice, anticipating the moment when the ice sheet would break apart. And for the past years, researchers, academics and environmentalists had been warning that such an event would become commonplace. Us humans have altered this planet like never before.

Together, we have raised the temperatures of Earth, creating the conditions where the emissions from our factories, our cars, our homes and through almost everything we do, is now trapped in our environment and atmosphere. Our world is warming, our climate is changing and our seas are rising. That is our doing.

What is also in our doing are international agreements, collective measures that, if fully supported and implemented, will at least halt if not reverse the damage that we have done. The Paris Agreement of November 2015 is the best hope yet of making real headway and tackling climate change once and for all.

It says a lot that every nation in the world, but for three, have agreed to the targets and goals of the Paris accord. Syria and Nicaragua have yet to sign. The United States has signed, but has now given notice from President Donald Trump that it is pulling out. Sadly, there will be many more such calving events now, given Trump’s denial of planetary warming.