Amount of styrofoam required to stably float a polar bear & cubs : ~ 3 m3
~ = a 6 m hexagon ~ 10 cm thick
Weight of such a strong styrofoam platform 100 kg
Area " " " ' ~ 25 sq. meters
Number per square kilometer ~ 40,000
Weight of styrofoam per km2 4,000 tones
Area off summer ice loss in last decade ~ 3,000,000 -4,000,000 km2
Mass of styrofoam required for polar bear friendly replacement of lost
ice : ~12- 16 billion tonnes
Mass of needed polystyrene as percentage of annual world petroleum
production : 300- 400 %
Cost at $130 bbl : > $10,000,000,000,000, plus installation.
Cost per polar bear: ~ fifty million dollars
Since beavers transform many hectares of moderate albedo forest into
blackwater ponds, shooting *Castor faber* and * Castro canandensi*s may
therefore hold more promise in constraining albedo loss than conserving *Ursus
marinus,*
Sorry.
On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 6:27:52 AM UTC-4, denskee wrote:
>
> My suggestion is to use the waste plastic which is generated at an
> alarming rate, to manufacture rafts in a hexagonal or octagonal shape, each
> linked to it's immediate neighbour at the corners with a coupling. This
> coupling will enable each raft to move slightly independantly to allow for
> wave movement. The upper surface of each raft would need to be either
> white or silver to reflect sunlight, much as the ice does. Such rafts
> should be large enough to support creatures such as sealions and seals.
> Polar bears might be too much of a stretch. There would therefore need to
> be an occasional raft left out of the pattern to enable such creatures to
> enter and leave the sea.
> If a number of identical moulds were created around the planet each
> country with hopefully a number of such moulds could produce these rafts
> before the waste left the country, and conceivably shipping companies
> could convey them to particularly North polar countries where they could
> be assembled into large rafts.
> Already this plastic waste is shipped around the planet, why not have it
> shipped as an end, and particularly useful, product ?
> A similar product could be manufactured form this waste to basically be
> anchored on the ground where the ice has already receeded, and could be
> made perhaps in reinforced sheet form, to enable it to withstand weather
> extremes. Whether those countries within the arctic circle would allow such
> masking of their territory, is another matter.
>
>
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