Climate change causes a mountain peak frozen for thousands of years to collapse

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/climate-change-causes-mountain-peak-103947381.html

Part of a Swiss mountain's summit has collapsed, sending more than 3.5 million cubic feet (100,000 cubic meters) of rock crashing into the valley below. The incident was likely a result of thawing permafrost — and scientists have warned similar events are to be expected as climate change causes ancient frozen ground to degrade.

The incident occurred on June 11 after an extensive period of high temperatures in the country. Videos reveal the sudden collapse of Fluchthorn's summit, an almost 11,155-foot (3,400 meters) mountain in the Silvretta Alps, on the border of Switzerland and Austria.

"Half of the summit was torn away by the demolition," mountain rescuer Riccardo Mizio told Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung (translated), adding the summit cross — a Christian cross marking the peak of a mountain — was missing. No one was injured by the rockfall.

The main peak of Fluchthorn lost approximately 330 feet (100 m). It fell in the western area of the peak, in the Futschöl Valley. The middle peak, which stands at 11,145 feet (3,397 m) is now the highest point of the Fluchthorn — meaning the mountain is now around 60 feet (19 m) shorter than it was before.

Fluchthorn sits among the Mischabel massif, the highest group of mountains in Switzerland. The cluster of 11 peaks all sit above 13,123 feet (4,000 m), including the tallest — the Dom — which is 14,911 feet (4,545 m) tall.

more with picture at link


Well, I guess the denialists were wrong

[flamingdem]

1. And so it continues

Just a little human extinction event in process..

[Think. Again.]

2. I probably shouldn't say this publicly...

..but I'm getting close to admitting to myself that it's a lost cause.

I know we've already stalled long enough to cause major disruption in the near future, but I'm beginning to think that it won't be possible anymore to stop CO2 emissions from causing a near-complete collapse of human society.

I'm thinking that unless something drastic is attempted, we've already locked in an apocolyptic future for the youngest generation.

I sincerely hope I am very, very wrong.

[WhiteTara]

3. I feel your dispair.

[AllyCat]

4. I look at my kids and wonder what we are leaving them.

He’ll on earth. I hope I have taught them enough resilience, compassion, and ingenuity to survive and live well.

[misanthrope]

5. Welcome to the fold

From the 1970s through the 1980s, I was concerned about the environment and anthropogenic climate change. I thought it might take a while but we would slowly progress as a society. When the scientific findings and evidence accumulated to a certain point then we would change our minds and work to solve it.

In the 1990s, my concerns deepened. The Cold War was done but the players never changed. Corporate strength became entrenched. As the internet increased access to knowledge, the progressive changes hoped for never manifested. The web became an ugly reflection of our id, our worst selves.

I watched the following decades as we fell further and further behind where we needed to be to stave off the dreadful benchmarks of damage. I read all about the now-obvious Anthropocene extinction and how few wanted to face reality.

Then came 2020 and the COVID pandemic. When I saw how easily it was politicized, what an utter quagmire its reaction became, then I knew for certain we were cooked for climate change. COVID was easy compared to what is needed to prevent the anthropogenic hellscape from emerging and we couldn't even manage to handle that virus.

I keep hearing folks say "our descendants are going to hate us." I don't believe it any longer because there's a good chance human civilization will shatter so badly that our descendants will have little understanding or maybe awareness of what we were and what we did. You think those characters in Mad Max knew anything about Kyoto or John D. Rockefeller?

[Hekate]

11. I'm 75 & my oldest grandkid is 18. Until recent years I did not think I would still be alive for ...

… the collapse that we seem to be experiencing even now.

I, too, thought we were progressing and surely would have a grip on the necessary changes by now. But all that you say about our behavior is sadly, tragically, true.

[Kaleva]

14. I'm 64 and I may be around to witness the really bad stuff arriving

[Kaleva]

13. IMHO, preventing climate change is a lost cause. However,...

there still is time to prepare and/or help one's children and grandchildren to prepare for what's coming.

[NoMoreRepugs]

6. Read some of the comments on yahoo.

The climate denier network must have cups n strings connecting all their mamas basements.

[canuckledragger]

8. Well the losers have a lot of free time on their hands.

It's not like the deniers have real jobs to go to or anything.

[Think. Again.]

12. I just read some of the yahoo comments...

...hopefully, it's just a bunch of CO2 industry bots and shills hard at work, but it's still mind-boggling.

I keep wondering why there isn't a strong and ongoing public education campaign to dispell some of the misinformation out there. Sometimes it seems like a popular understanding of the dire situation we're in is not important (somehow) to the powers that be.

[LudwigPastorius]

7. Yodel-ay-hee-hoo boy are we fucked.

[1WorldHope]

9. Humans, won't be missed. But the earth, she will keep on keeping on,

Until the sun explodes.

[Hugin]

10. Some years ago, I was reading about events at the end of the last ice age...

It was riveting reading.

The most impressive part to me was the descriptions of giant lakes of fresh water that would form on the top of the huge ice sheets. When they would finally breach the banks of ice surrounding them, there would be waterfalls thousands of feet high sending pulses of water down the sides of the glaciers at hundreds of miles-per-hour.

It was eye-opening for me and it must have impressed the humans present at the time. There are many accounts of witnessing these types of events in oral history from all over the world.

The really scary thing about this is that I was reading these descriptions in Geological and Anthropological Journals... Not in the fiction section.