Dawson City, YT, Faces Melting Of Ice On Which Town Of 1500 Is Built

[hatrack]

DAWSON CITY, YUKON -- This is a town built on ice, which is a real concern to Norm Carlson, who runs Dawson City's public works. He has seen the early warning signs of climate change: massive spruce beetle infestations, extreme wildfire and fast spring floods.

Next up: melting permafrost. For this outpost of 1,500 people, 100 kilometres from the Alaska border, that could lead to the destabilization of the town's dirt roads, buried sewers and water lines, which are encased in naturally occurring ice or frozen muck two metres below the surface.

"If the permafrost fails here, everything is going to snap," Mr. Carlson said. "It just can't take that kind of movement. Roads would melt, the whole town would sink. We would lose all our infrastructure wherever there is ice in the ground. It would be soup." There are early signs of a problem. In February, one section of a water line dropped 25 centimetres at a joint, causing a large tear. The problem was discovered when water filled, then froze, a manhole nearly a block away. The damage was repaired at a cost of $20,000.

Crews are constantly on the lookout for sinking ground and frozen manholes. The longer the water runs underground unchecked, the more it melts the ice, further destabilizing the infrastructure. "Once you have a break in Dawson, it saturates all the ground around it," Mr. Carlson said. "If that's a permafrost area, it stays saturated and you have seriously weakened the infrastructure around the whole area."

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060306.DAWSONGTA06/TPStory/National

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. They may need to relocate the town :^(

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

3. Maybe They Can Relocate To Same Place As New Orleans...

Since they plan to move New Orleans to somewhere else, perhaps they can find someplace to keep moving cities when they're no longer inhabitable.

After the big quake hits California, they can relocate San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego to this new location as well.

[phantom power]

4. I propose the Canadian Shield

It's a geologically stable granite pluton. It's away from all the oceans. It's located around (or underneath) the great lakes, so there's fresh water (sort of).

Now all we have to do is figure out how the population of North America can live there.

(edited to correct Bushism)

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Smaller towns have been moved before... such as when rivers were

redirected through their valleys.

[Karenina]

2. Hey, Hatrack

You've been on it for YEARS. I've become a cynic and simply look forward to dying peacefully before the crash I see coming. HOW do YOU remain sane? :shrug:

[hatrack]

5. Posting gives me the illusion of control - maybe that's why I post

That's just part of it. At the same time, the cold part of me keeps murmuring the lessons of geologic time and evolution into my ear.

1. We're not all that important - the dinosaurs were around for the better part of 200 million years, we've been around for (in approximately our present forms) for maybe a couple of million years, so what makes us such hot shit?

2. We're the latest in a long line of experiments in natural selection and when can no longer deal with the problems Nature presents us with, she'll clean the slate and move on to the next experiment.

So while what I see every single day really pisses me off at the thought of the wonder and beauty we're sucking out of the world, much as too much chewing drains the flavor from a piece of gum, I keep the long count in mind, and while often disappointed, I can't say I'm ever truly surprised.

[phantom power]

6. But the dinosaurs didn't have digital watches.

(that we know of)

[hatrack]

13. Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite pop science books

"After Man", by Dougal Dixon, who achieved some stature as a nature artist and for his work on any number of books on dinosaurs.

Anyway, it's a speculative natural history of Earth 50 million years from now. Humans are long since extinct, California's about 300 miles west of Portland, OR and the Great Rift Vallye is riftier than ever. Very fun stuff.

[phantom power]

14. I love that book! Have you seen "Man after Man?"

Or "The future is Wild?" I can't get enough of land-dwelling squid.

[hatrack]

15. Especially when it pelts its larger cousin with fruit and sticks

What a hoot!!

[phantom power]

16. Molluscs deserve a chance to invent digital watches too!

[hatrack]

17. But where will they get their tantalum?

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

18. No problem!

They will mine the subduction zones, where a mysterious cache of tantalum, silicon and carbon got swept up, 200 million years ago.

[Karenina]

8. On the big screen in the train station today

I saw an ad for the Nokia "fantasy-fone" collection. Two stops later I arrive in my 'hood which has experienced a significant influx of people fleeing the resource war that feeds the ad...

[phantom power]

9. which resource war are you referring to?

[hatrack]

10. Coltan, I presume - it's a strategic ore present in Congo

Its key constituent is tantalum, a rare earth which is vital to cell phone design and function.

Since the region is a war zone, and since most of the mining of coltan goes on below any and all jurisdictional radars, let alone environmental protections, every time you buy a cell phone, you subsidize the clear-cutting of tropical forests, the dumping of toxic mining wastes and the slaughter of forest wildlife by miners who can't rely on the normal routes of supply and so just pick up a gun when it's time for dinner.

Kind of puts a whole new face on "Can you hear me now?", doesn't it?

:eyes:

[phantom power]

11. I'm damned now, aren't I.

[hatrack]

12. Me too - didn't want to get one of the Goddamned things . . .

But no choice, thanks to a new job.

[pscot]

19. Stay on the case, Hatrack

Your posts are the true Dharma. It's lonely being able to see with clarity shit that seems to escape almost everyone else. You can talk to people, and they'll nod agreement. "Right. It's some awful shit we're doing to the planet", then they go of to build another airplane or bulldoze another stand of trees or sell another Hummer. I guess they can't see it until it bites them in the ass, personally. Anyway--I'd give you a medal if I could afford it. The Paul Revere medal. Stay on the case.