I seem to recall someone telling me that the Arabs were planning to tow icebergs to the Middle East to provide fresh water supplies. Apparently, the sheer bulk of the bergs would prevent any significant melting by the time they reached that part of the world - but maybe they were just pulling my leg. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Abdo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 8:05 PM Subject: [CrashList] Looking at the The Bright Side of Globl Warming > Icebergs in a bottle are the cool new drink > John Harlow, Los Angeles > > FOR some the melting of the polar icecaps is a portent of doom. For > Ronald Stamp it is a business opportunity: he bottles icebergs for sale > to yuppies seeking novelties. > > Mineral water from Arctic icebergs, selling at $10 (�6.70) a bottle in > Beverly Hills, is the latest fashionable drink in California. > Now the icebergs are heading for Britain. Stamp arrived in London last > week to meet British importers. One port of call, of course, was the > Titanic bar off Piccadilly Circus. > > Arctic glaciers regularly shed icebergs, creating such a shipping hazard > that fishermen from Greenland and Canada have to remove 150,000-year-old > monoliths from Atlantic shipping lanes. > > The growing number of bergs freed into the North Atlantic by global > warming inspired Stamp, 45, a former fish wholesaler, to find a way of > transforming water into gold. > > He spent his savings renovating a barge and last year set out to round > up icebergs. He and his crew from St John's, in Newfoundland, caught a > berg bigger than the Titanic and hacked it up at sea. The car-sized > chunks were melted and filtered into stylish bottles. > > The water, which is named Borealis after the Latin for far north, is > marketed as the "purest of the pure" - to the chagrin of the French, who > traditionally dominate the �20 billion-a-year business. > > Although French rainwaters take a decade to trickle through the volcanic > rock that purifies them, even the youngest berg is 10,000 years old and > would have frozen long before modern pollutants tainted many mountain > spring supplies. The water is not salty because it comes from frozen > rain. > > The only disadvantage facing the Newfounders, largely fishermen put out > of work by the scarcity of cod, is the weather. > > Greenland's ice blanket, which stretches over an area of 700,000 square > miles, sheds about 750 mature icebergs a year - up from 600 half a > century ago - but a storm can scatter them for miles. Harvesting > icebergs in the high seas, when a shifting berg could capsize the > Borealis barge, is almost as risky as deep-sea fishing. > > The only limit appears to be the size of the barge: demand already > exceeds supply. > > What is the next step in berg-herding? The company, now partly funded by > the Newfoundland government, which is fighting 15% unemployment, is > looking for one or two second-hand oil tankers. Drop for drop, the > liquid they will bring ashore could be more valuable than petrol. > > Although the water meets American health requirements, the French, in > particular, are not convinced. One water salesman sneered: "It has > probably got polar bear pee in it." > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist > _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
