It's known as the doomsday glacier and scientists
growing more concerned about it. The Thwaites glacier
in Antarctica is one of the largest on earth and is
larger than the state of Florida. According to a new
study, scientists say sometime in the last 200 years,
the base of the glacier retreated twice as much than
observed in the last 10 years. That means the glacier
can show much faster than previously thought if it
collapses, scientists say the global sea level could
increase several feet and put coastlines at risk of
destruction joining us Now to talk more about this
concerning finding Terry Tamminen. He's the president
and ceo of altsee at the ports of Los Angeles. Thank
you so much for your time sir. How concerned should
be about this glacier melting? We should be very
concerned. Scientists have been telling us about this
for quite some time and in parallel with that the
Greenland ice mass is suffering a similar decline. An
part of what we're starting to learn now with new
science, both in terms of the Thwaites glacier and
Greenland is how fast the meltwater underneath these
giant ice floes is melting. And that's something t
been much harder to study because you can't get cameras
down there and sensors, although now they're starting
to do that. And what we're finding is, you know,
imagine that you had some ice on the top of your of
your table and uh and then suddenly you had some wate
underneath it. Well, it would slide much faster off the
table and the same thing is happening here. And so I
think we need to be very concerned because the
consequences of this happening rapidly, especially i
it happens both in the arctic and the antarctic at the
same time, that could just be catastrophic to our
coastal cities and infrastructu Is there a way to
reverse this or even slow the process at this point?
Honestly, not a lot, because scientists told us that we
really needed to stop greenhouse gas concentrations i
the atmosphere at about 350 parts per million, and
we're already at over 420 parts per million. So even if
we stop dumping our carbon pollution into the
atmosphere tomorrow, which unfortunately we're not
going to do, it would take quite some Time for that
concentration to diminish back to cooler, let's call it
cooler levels. And so unfortunately, I think it's goi
to get worse before it gets better. And the one thing
that, as you mentioned in the beginning of this piece
that we're seeing this great acceleration, it's not
just this very slow change that we can adapt to over
time, but this could happen in the next 10 To 15 or 20
years where literally these, these ice sheets melt and
fall into the ocean and raise sea levels 3-10 ft in a
very short period of time. So unfortunately, I'm afr
some of this is baked in. And the only question is how
bad will it be and when, so what we need to be doing
now is preparing our coastal infrastructure
accordingly. And is it pretty clear that this is a
symptom of climate change? Oh, absolutely. There's no
doubt the intergovernmental panel on climate change
which has been meeting for decades now, it's the
world's leading scientists from all countries that come
to consensus on their, their findings and their
recommendations has told us that this is 99.9% caused
by humans and by climate change and our continue
pumping of carbon pollution into the atmosphere. I want
to get your thoughts lastly, on one individual who is
stepping up in a pretty big way to fight climate
change. The founder, founder of Patagonia is giving
away his $3 billion dollar company to to fight this
issue. What do you make of this bold move? We should
note that he is getting avoiding taxes big time on this
as well. Well, he's avoiding taxes, but that's only
because he's also avoiding the profit he would have
gotten by keeping the company and so I think that's
actually kind of a misleading headline. Um no, he'
being very generous. I know yvonne Chouinard, I've I'v
admired him for a long time. He's been bold in terms of
everything from climbing mountains to then starting
Patagonia and making it a company that was more
interested in the planet and what it could do to help
rather than just take profits and this is really
something that I think other philanthropists and other
very wealthy individuals should be looking at and
considering modeling because their business won't
exist. I mean, stop and think about if the Thwaites
glacier melts and sea levels rise 3 to 10 ft, we're
gonna lose airports, we're goin to lose ports. So all
of the goods that, for example, amazon transports
day will have a hard time getting to consumers and
people won't have the money to buy anything. So, so
this is self preservation for these companie
definitely some serious consequences if left unchecked,
Terry Tamminen, appreciate your time and your insight,
sir. My pleasure.