# How would Modern Civilization deal with an Actual Ice Age? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 25, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383 "2003-02-25T13:26:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/21 "2003-02-25T19:59:49Z")
I personally don’t think Nature can be altered enough by our green house polluting to make an ice age not happen. **Sunfish** - that was a very interesting post. Very informative. So do you go out on the ocean in a sunfish or something more along the lines of a JY? ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/22 "2003-02-25T20:09:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > \*\*Glaciers form when snow falls in the winter, but never melts in the summer. Repeat for a few dozen years and you’ve got a glacier. Nothing magical about it, continental glaciers don’t “move” south, or “retreat” north. Snow falls and either melts or doesn’t melt. \*\* Um, no. Glaciers DO move south. That’s how they can carve up the land so much. That’s why the USA has all of Canada’s topsoil. 🙂 Snow falls in the extreme north, and the sheer weight of it as it builds pushes the ice down and then out of the way in all directions. You’re right that glaciers don’t “move” when they retreat though–they just melt. ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/23 "2003-02-25T20:10:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jawdirk \* > \*\*Would it be too difficult for us to purposely cause greenhouse warming and thus counteract colder winters and glacial growth? \*\* The trouble is that it isn’t possible to say that anthropogenic warming would automatically and directly counteract a natural trend toward cooling. The Earth’s climate system is enormously complex, with many positive and negative feedbacks all interacting with each other, and there is a great deal that we frankly do not understand well, if at all. In fact, there is some thought that increased warming in the near future could conceivably trigger ice sheet growth, since higher latitudes would receive more precipitation (in the form of snow) than they do right now. What to do, what to do… 😉 **Phlosphr** - Thanks for the compliment. And although I wish I could say that I owned a boat of any kind, my name is just a nickname my friends came up with a long time ago. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![malaka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@malaka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malaka)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/24 "2003-02-25T20:38:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guy Propski \* > \*\*Modern civilization probably couldn’t cope with it. There’d be mass migrations south, away from the ice. Current northern centers of commerce (i.e., Toronto, Moscow, Oslo, e.g.) would be innundated with ice, while some only slightly farther south (New York, London, Warsaw, etc.), would be nearly uninhabitable. Those countries around the equator, formerly too hot to become population centers, would see their weather become more temperate. So the balance of power and business would shift to those countries. > > Unfortunately, the old northern countries would not be willing to take this lying down, so tension and agression would rise. Nuclear war breaks out when Russia,the US, and other cold members of the atomic club decide they want some warm real estate. The resulting fallout causes a nuclear winter, and the entire globe becomes encased in ice. > > Of course, this is just one scenario… \*\* Reminds me of the intro to Busta Rhymes [Extinction Level Event](http://users.pandora.be/angelo_n/lyrics/extinctionlevelevent/01.html): > [@](#): > > [Little Girl] > Daddy, what’s it gonna be like in the year 2000? > > [Dad] > Well Sweetheart, for your sake I hope it’ll be all peaches and cream, > But I’m afraid the end time is near. The cataclysmic apocolypse > referred to in the scriptures of every holy book known to mankind. > It will be an era frought with boundless greed and corruption > where global monitary systems disentergrate leaving brother to kill > brother for a grain of overcooked rice. > The naitons of the civilized world will collapse under the oppressive > weight of parasidic political conspiracies which remove all hope and > optimism from their once faithful citizens. > Around the globe, generations of polluters will be punished for their > sins, unshielded by the ozone layer they have successfully depleted > left to bake in the searing naked rays of light. > Wholesale assassination serve to destablize every remaining government > leaving the starving and wicked to fend for themselves. > Bloodthirsty renegade cyborgs created by tax-dodging corporations > wreak havoc. Pissed off androids tired of being slaves to a godless > and gutless system where the rich get richer and the poor get fucked > over and out. Unleash total worldwide destruction by means of nuclear > holocaust annihilating the terrified masses leaving in its torturous > wake, nothing but vicious, cannibalistic, mutated, radiated, and > horribly disfigured hoards of satanic killers bent on revenge, but > against home. There are so few left alive. Starvation reigns supreme, > forcing unlucky survivors to eat anything and anyone in their path. > Massive earthquakes crack the planet’s crust like a hallow eggshell > causing unending volcanic eruptions. The creatures of the seven seas, > unable to escape to certain death upon land, boil in their liquid > prison. Disease encircles the earth…plauges and viruses with no > known cause or cure, laying waste to whatever draws breath. > And human kind, having proven itself to be nothing more than a race > of ruthless scavengers fall victim to merciless attack at the hands > of interplanetary alien tribes who seek to conquer our charred remains. > This is Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front, > and there is only one…year…left. Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/25 "2003-02-25T20:39:32Z")
The crowding problem would be somewhat offset by the lowering sea levels expanding the coastlines and ice from the glaciers could be used to water crops growing in the deserts of New Mexico, and Arizona. Don’t forget that a lot of tasty animals like the musk ox can get by just fine on the tundra. ---
**Author:** ![bunyip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@bunyip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bunyip)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/26 "2003-02-25T20:56:43Z")
The thing that’s always bothered me about the new Ice age scenario’s that you read about is what would happen to any nuclear power stations/dumps that got caught up in an ice sheet advance. I guess you would have a few hundred years to remove all the high level waste, but the thought of an advancing radioactive ice sheet is not appealing. ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/27 "2003-02-25T21:10:26Z")
> [@](#): > > How would modern civilization cope with another Ice Age? By buying a lot of plastic sheeting and duct tape of course! ---
**Author:** ![Linus\_Van\_Pelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Linus\_Van\_Pelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linus_Van_Pelt)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/28 "2003-02-25T22:50:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phlosphr \* > \*\*…Global temperatures would shift and Phoenix would start getting seasons. … \*\* We get seasons now. We get “summer” and “not summer”. There may be only two, but we get them, darn it! On a more serious note, this is the real problem with the dire warnings that we are going to destroy the earth through global warming. Climactic changes are far too complex to think that we have all of the answers, or even most of them (I remember being in grade school 25 years ago and reading serious scientific articles about global **cooling** ) and we certainly can’t say that any actions of the human race will _definately_ have any specific effect on global climate, short of blowing up all of our nuclear weapons at once - and even then, we don’t know for certain _specifically_ what would happen (other than that it would be pretty bad). Does that mean that we should dismiss pollution as unimportant? Absolutely not. But let’s be concerned for the right reasons: because it’s distinctly unpleasant, causes real and measurable health problems, and _may_ be causing or contributing to other problems, which may or may not include global warming. ---
**Author:** ![aeropl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@aeropl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aeropl)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2003, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/29 "2003-02-26T00:00:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Clawman \* > \*\*London is about 8 degrees further north than Toronto. New York is roughly on the same latitude as Madrid, Rome and Istanbul. (I’m estimating from a time-zone map in a pocket diary here!). Surprised me, I must admit. \*\* That is surprising that London is so far north. Ahh, the wonders of the Gulfstream current. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2003, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383/30 "2003-02-26T07:00:24Z")
My home in Sacramento suddenly becomes much more like my old home in Montana. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-modern-civilization-deal-with-an-actual-ice-age/157383.md?page=1)