Mine Antarctica?? (2 Viewers)

[LynH1326]

This morning whilst checking my email, i noticed an article on ninemsn titled "Mine Antarctica, says Barnaby Joyce"
It reports that Joyce says that Australia should mine the natural recources of Antarctica before anyone else does. This will be on "Australian Story" tonight on the ABC.
I would like to point out to everyone that Antarctica's recources are not abound enough as he would like to think and would not be economically viable. To mine Antarctica would also destory the last untouched ecosystem. It would be like the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
Instead of thinking of mining unsustainable resources, why doesn't Joyce help find alternatives to fossil fuels or try to help public schools and hospitals.
If people wanted to mine Antarctica, it would've already been done.

 

[AntiHyper]

No, to get to antarctica's "soil" you'd have to dig down a couple kilometres of ice. No one have done it before. Except maybe the people who did Alien vs Predator lol.

Alternative to fossil fuels are still way more expensive because they uses much more recent technology. Usually these things cheapens through time so why not just wait for it.

 

[Rafy]

heh, that would be a violation of the Antarctic Treaty and i doubt that other countries would take too kindly to it. Hell, most dont even recognise our territorial claim.

If not only for enviromental concerns, its economic viability is questionable and the political consequences would be too great.

Twhy doesn't Joyce help find alternatives to fossil fuels

Nuclear power.

or try to help public schools and hospitals.

A state responsibility.

 

[The Brucemaster]

It would never happen. Not only is it unfeasible and uneconomical it would not be allowed (i hope):

http://www.scar.org/treaty/cep/

 

[Captain Gh3y]

The moment it becomes technologically feasible (and some effort should be made to make this the case) we should do so to the greatest extent possible.

 

[loquasagacious]

Economic imperative will see it become possible and then be done.

 

[The Brucemaster]

Economic imperative will see it become possible and then be done.

Are you saying that in the future it will be economically NECESSARY to mine Antarctica?

 

[loquasagacious]

Necessary is the wrong word, market forces will push for the mining of antarctica. The value of potential resources there will escalate which will drive research into extraction methods and once an extraction method is devised there will be considerable impetuous for the extraction of resources. This is all inevitable. The benefit of mining antarctica will steadily increase.

For this reason I support more aggressively asserting our territorial claim to large chunk of Antarctica - including engaging in a cold war to maintain our claim.

Oh and as an interesting and more romantic note: Perhaps Antarctica could be our saviour. Oil is running out as it is which is pushing us to alternate fuel sources however alternates invariably involve the use of oil in some manner (plastics etc). So having a stockpile of oil for this kind of usage could well be handy.

 

[katie_tully]

Is it at all possible for us to not fuck the last piece of unmolested land on the planet?

Oil? We don't need to go to Antarctica for oil. There is more oil under South Australia, and under the ocean beneath South Australia to supply us. We were just dumb enough to sign some bullshit treaty stopping us from accessing our OWN oil.

Leave Antarctica alone, ffs. The world is already losing over half it's rainforests, the north pole, arctic circle, whatever you want to call it has depleted in size by 1/3 in 20 years...and yet people still want to fuck with the last untouched place on Earth.

 

[yy]

wouldn't that spark diplomatic tension with the rest of the world? since, as Rafy said, most countries do not recognise the territorial claim

 

[loquasagacious]

Katie: We should be prepared to get the other oil too.

Oh and a brightside of global warming, as the ice melts it gets easier and easier to access antarticas oil..... (mostly joking).

YY: Yes it would heighten tension which is why we should do it thus:

Allign with the US. The US has interests in oil and blocking chinese access, they can bankroll exploration in our zone and scare the chinese and argentines off.

Also tension is inevitable as resources dwindle, hence my argument that we act now while tensions are still fairly low eg take advantage of others by getting in first.

 

[Aznpsycho]

Is it at all possible for us to not fuck the last piece of unmolested land on the planet?

Oil? We don't need to go to Antarctica for oil. There is more oil under South Australia, and under the ocean beneath South Australia to supply us. We were just dumb enough to sign some bullshit treaty stopping us from accessing our OWN oil.

Leave Antarctica alone, ffs. The world is already losing over half it's rainforests, the north pole, arctic circle, whatever you want to call it has depleted in size by 1/3 in 20 years...and yet people still want to fuck with the last untouched place on Earth.

Why? There is fuck all biodiversity in Antarctica. The sentimentality argument doesn't hold much strength when the economy starts to fubar. Yes, the environment is important, as is biodiversity of species. Yes, we need to compromise between business and environmentalism. However, the only thing special about Antarctica is that it is so remote and inhospitable, making commercial investment so expensive that no one wants to touch it, hence that treaty. So therefore, save the Amazon, protect the Murray-Darling, but feel free to exploit the environmental wasteland that is the Antarctic.

Also, unlike many other countries, Australia has very good access to the Antarctic. Hence, it won't be difficult for us to expand our sphere of influence over the place. The only problem is perhaps other countries protesting, but when the hell has protesting done anything. It depends, if it advantages Australia more to annex Antarctica than to not, then I'm all for it.

EDIT:

Allign with the US. The US has interests in oil and blocking chinese access, they can bankroll exploration in our zone and scare the chinese and argentines off.

Also tension is inevitable as resources dwindle, hence my argument that we act now while tensions are still fairly low eg take advantage of others by getting in first.

This is the kind of thing I am talking about.

 

[ur_inner_child]

Why? There is fuck all biodiversity in Antarctica. The sentimentality argument doesn't hold much strength when the economy starts to fubar. Yes, the environment is important, as is biodiversity of species. Yes, we need to compromise between business and environmentalism. However, the only thing special about Antarctica is that it is so remote and inhospitable, making commercial investment so expensive that no one wants to touch it, hence that treaty. So therefore, save the Amazon, protect the Murray-Darling, but feel free to exploit the environmental wasteland that is the Antarctica.

Your argument only makes sense if I ignore the fact that Antarctica is not just ice.

Also, antarctica can say a lot about earth, being the untouched, preserved block of history to tell us about our origins. I remember a block of ice that was extracted proved wrong a particular theory of how the dinosaurs died. This is just one example.

I don't really mind if this means nothing to you, but until every single person does not believe in the Creation story, then I would probably not stand in the way so passionatley.

 

[Aznpsycho]

You don't need too much land for scientific studies, and it's not like the entire landmass of Antarctica is going to be consumed by strip mining. The term you are looking for is 'Ice core drilling', where a big phallic thing is drilled through the ice, and you recover a long tube of ice. You use that to determine the composition of the atmosphere at various points in time.

There's also weather monitoring, but you can stick these stations pretty much anywhere.

These sorts of things are not going to take an obscene amount of room to conduct. Hence, saying that economic development is going to intrude on scientific research makes absolutely no sense. Antarctica is a massive place. There's no lack of space, and unlike the oceans, any pollution chemical is going to remain localised, and not affect any ecological systems.

Don't worry, creationist bogeymen aren't going to take over the world and destroy your beloved secularity.

 

[Rafy]

You can ask questions directly to Barnaby Joyce on the Australian Story Forum right now.

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/MessageList.aspx?b=27&t=6&te=True

 

[anita_wax]

joyce barnaby, i now hate thee. thinking of the pocket before others... leave this last untouched environment as it is.

 

[katie_tully]

Aznpsycho, do me a favour. Google "albedo".

Antarctica plays a vital role in reflecting short wave radiation from the sun, back into space. It is one of the Earth's largest reflective surfaces.
Whether you give a shit about global warming through greenhouse gas emissions is irrelevant, I personally think the Koyoto agreement is a hunk of shit, and there is not an ounce of proof to show that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will reduce global warming.
HOWEVER, there is proof that by reducing global albedo, it will have a dramatic impact on the temperature of the Earth.

If you don't care that the Earth is warming, and that the ecosystems we know today are reducing rapidly, then you're a fuckhead.

We have oil on our own land. Why do we need to go and fuck the last untouched place on Earth? So we beat everybody else? Good fucking excuse.

 

[Vampire]

LOL my thoughts exactly.

 

[loquasagacious]

Given that we are not proposing strip mining I would suggest that effects on albedo would be marginal - much like we get alot of oil out of the sea-bed but oil rigs do not occupy a large area....

Also the bob brown quote was good: "Barnaby Joyce has been to the cathedral and seen only the gold".....

 

[katie_tully]

I didn't learn it at uni. I'm doing biology, not Earth or Environmental Science.