Is this really true? And why aren't we hearing about it in the mainstream press if it is?

I can’t seem to access that article, but yeah, it sounds like Global Warming hooey to me!

This link might work better.

It is an article linked from my google homepage. It is from The Press Trust of India. It’s a short article so I’ll just cut and paste it.
North Pole becomes an ‘island’

London, Sept 1 (PTI) It’s now a fact. The North Pole has become an “island” for the first time in history, courtesy global warming.
NASA’s satellite images have revealed that the melting ice has facilitated the opening up of both the north-west and north-east passages, making it possible for marine vessels to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap.

In fact, the images suggest the north-west passage opened last weekend while the final blockage on the east side of the ice cap, an area of sea ice stretching to as far as Siberia, dissolved a few days later.

“The passages are open. It’s an historic event. We are going to see this more and more as the years go by,” according to Professor Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in the US.

However, he has warned that the images indicated that the Arctic may have entered a “death spiral” caused by global warming, British newspaper ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.

But shipping companies are smiling all the way to the bank as they plan to exploit the first simultaneous opening of the routes since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago.

According to the Beluga Group in Germany, it will send the first ship through the north-east passage, around Russia, next year, cutting 4,000 miles off the voyage from Germany to all the way to Japan.

It may be mentioned that last year, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic had reached a record low, that also prompted scientists to caution that the ice cap could vanish altogether during summer in years’ time. PTI

According to Nostradamus and his co-anchor Chicken Little over at ABC news, one can now circumnavigate this frozen tundra. WHOOPPPEEE!!!
......
Dudes…..wax up those boards.
Noah…..prepare to weigh anchor.
Al…...polish up that medal, it’s time to…...

…...pull your collective heads outta ‘yer’ asses.
Allow me to reiterate…“recorded history”. It is what it is.

The last time the Arctic had a moat around it was at the end of the Ice Age…A few hundred centuries ago.

Approximately 10+ of them.

Oooops….I can’t reiterate what was not there to be reiterated! Sorry for the confusion.

I think the mainstream press already knows about it, and has reported it.

In the article you cite, it is mentioned, quoting, “British newspaper ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.”

You can’t get much more “mainstream” than that publication.

September 1, 2008, 8:49 AM EDT

@Stratman, If it’s hooey, who’s funding it? It takes a lot of money to finance a global conspiracy, and who stands to gain? Last I checked, Greenpeace was still ringing doorbells to beg for donations.

Global Warming/Climate Change is a very big industry. If it were disproven today, billions of dollars and uncountable jobs would be lost at the wink of an eye. Al Gore seems to have lined his pockets with not only cash, but with an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize with this hooey.

It’s not that hard to get funding for a ‘global conspiracy’. All you have to do is guilt people into thinking that their lifestyles are going to kill millions of people, and then sell them the ‘green’ solutions for a small house payment.

I still say that we should all be good stewards of the planet, since it’s the only one we have thus far. Do I think that our activities have a significant impact on our climate? No. I say let’s ask the Martians why their ice caps are melting as well.

Got some links for that? That aren’t funded by the RNC or Exxon Mobil?

Jesus will come and save us from the toxic planet

@stratman How is it hooey that there has been an unprecedented melting of the polar ice cap?

@windbloezxp Not nearly as big an industry or vested interest as the huge groups of polluters funding major disinformation campaigns about the reality that is global warming.

@Marina, not to mention that the overwhelming majority of the Earth’s climatologists support the greenhouse warming theory. Actually, I did just mention it, didn’t I?

Marina, it all comes down to why you believe what you’re told. If the report you read reinforces your view, you’re more apt to believe it. Very few minds are changed today. And just because it shows up in print, it must be true, eh? The Enquirer would no longer exist unless there was a market for it, you see?

@stratman37 You are correct about polarization in our society. It is unfortunate. All sources are not equal. I am afraid I am not following the “If the National Enquirer Exists, There Must Not Be Global Warming” argument.

No, no, I’m not advocating mutual exlusivity. I’m saying that as long as there are sheeple, there will be publications that present non/half truths.

@stratman37 Too true, sadly.

If we are responsible for the melting of our ice caps, then who’s to blame for the melting of the Martian ice caps?

You make me very angry, very angry INDEED!

@winblowzxp, are you aware that Mars and Earth are very different planets?

They are two different planets, one has life, the other is barren, but both have seen their ice caps melt.

The ice caps on Mars wax and wane on a yearly cycle. This has been observed since the time of Percival Lowell, who studied the yearly cycles extensively. The Martian caps are composed of both water ice and carbon dioxide, which does not melt, but sublimates into the Martian atmosphere. Mars and Earth have different axial tilts, periods of revolution, periods of rotation, perigee and apogee, gravities, and weather.

Both Mars and Earth have had ice ages. Those cycles are predictable and are based on the relationship between the planet’s inclination to the ecliptic plane – the axial tilt – and the period of revolution (year). During an ice age, there is more ice at the poles. The ice recedes at the end of the ice age.

That’s not what is happening on Earth right now. Our climate is completely unrelated to anything happening on Mars. Weather here and there is affected somewhat by solar cycles, e.g., there are periods of solar storms, or sunspots, every 11 years, but they do not have a dramatic effect on either planet’s climate. The sun is not getting hotter. The air is.

So the sun doesn’t go through periods of higher/lower output?

Just for ya’ll

I cannot believe this is still a topic. Folks that don’t accept certain aspects of climate change, ought be placed on the shelf where Creationists, believers in Santa Claus, Mother Goose follower’s, and other intellectual dwarfs and mental misfits are relegated too.
You’re ass will burst into flames while you deny mans impact on planetary climate change.

allen: would that be considered global warming on Uranus? : )

In

ln of what? Why are we doing natural logs now all of a sudden?

@winblowzxp, your link is getting caught by my company’s junk site filter, probably for good reason. Your profile says you’re an EE student. I’m an EE, Summa Cum Laude. Maybe you should spend more time studying science and less time promulgating conspiracy theories.

Try This
And this
And Google Video

Just becuase you graduated Summa Cum Laude doesn’t make you any authority whatsoever. Not even if you graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Well, to split a few more hairs, Magna Cum Laude is a lesser honor that Summa Cum Laude, but we’re not talking about me; we’re talking about the drivel being disseminated by folks who are choosing to ignore (or suppress) scientific evidence because there’s too much money to be made in the energy markets.

Ich…..Will you marry me?

Who’s got more money to lose the energy markets or those who spout the ‘science’?

@mee, my wife would object to that, but you can be in my Fluther!

@winblowzxp, as long as we’re talking about science – I hate to digress, but I just came off another question in which you confidently proclaimed that a camera’s depth of field has something to do with the color balance. If you don’t understand something as simple as how a camera works, how you can have the faintest grasp of something as complex as global climatology?

And you’re right, my graduation honors, which I admit were bestowed before you were born, don’t make me an authority – but at least they prove I was paying attention in my science classes.

And your latest comment pretty much affirms my position: the energy companies have the most to lose if we take stronger measures to curb greenhouse emissions. That’s why they’re funding “research” to raise doubt among the public. The tobacco companies have poured millions into disinformation campaigns, too, which is why people are still buying cigarettes. Do you smoke, BTW?

On that other question…I spoke through personal experience.

I paid good enough attention in my science classes to make A’s in them. I may have a little trouble understanding simple concepts, but that’s because you can’t dissect them to the Nth. I have no problems understanding extremely complicated processes. I had a bit of trouble with Algebra and Trig, but I had no trouble understanding the Calculus, Partial Diffs, and Abstract Algebra that I’ve taken. I may not do so well with simplicity, but complexity and nuance are where I excel. That begs the question, who the hell are you to tell me what I know and what I don’t, I’d bet that you’d be my best friend if I presented blatantly bogus science which furthered the dogma known as man made global warming.

Man made global warming is a multi-billion dollar business. If it were disproven tomorrow, imagine the amount of jobs it would have to evacuate. Look at what it’s doing now to poor developing countries who have to make a choice whether to keep the lights on or refrigerate medicine. Energy companies don’t spend as much on research as you lead on. Man made global warming is the equivalent to your statement about tobacco companies, not the energy companies.

Also, I don’t smoke.

You still haven’t told me where these billions are. Who’s running it? What are their ticker symbols? Al Gore doesn’t really count; he got on the bandwagon relatively late, and he’s not rich enough to be financing it all. I’ll spell out the facts for you one more time:

1) Carbon dioxide traps heat. An ordinary laboratory calorimeter is all you need to prove that.

2) There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there was before the Industrial Revolution.

3) The planet has gotten warmer during the same period, and in near-perfect correlation to the rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide.

4) The people who oppose the greenhouse warming theory have a lot more money than the people who support it.

5) The overwhelming majority of scientists on this planet support it; you already mentioned the Nobel Committee, so I don’t have to. Since the people who say there is no greenhouse warming have far more money than the people who do, you can’t make an argument that any of it is about money. It’s about survival.

6) The Arctic is melting, although the polar cap is not a problem – Greenland is. The glaciers there are melting, too. Whatever you want to say about the politics of it, those facts are incontrovertible.

And I’m not the one telling you what you know and don’t know. That would be the person or person who’s feeding you the dreck you’re regurgitating here – maybe the ones behind that bullshit video you linked me to three times. But it doesn’t matter. We can keep exchanging barbs until doomsday and not get anywhere. The problem is that doomsday might be earlier than you think.

1. I’m not contesting that.
2. Give numbers. How much of the atmosphere is composed of CO2, and how much is occuring through natural means and from our impact.
3. The sun has also had more output since then as well.
4. Governments have much more money than any industry. They also have more power to influence than industries.
5. Science follows the money. Refer to 4.
6. The Antarctic is thickening. When Erik the Red found Greenland, lo and behold, it was green.

Solar output is supposed to decrease within the next decade. We’ll see whether or not we’ll be going back to Ice Age Alarmism. It’s funny that Al Gore has ownership in the main carbon credit company.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change

You are going to read what you read and believe what you believe. I’m done here. I’m just glad I live 600 feet above sea level.

You know, Jesus is going to come and save all the folks that don’t beleive in global warming, He is going to take them to Mansions in the Sky, with streets of gold.

So the sooner we can make Earth unliveable, Jesus will come back in a cloud…..

I think winblowzxp’s comments on this page provide a perfect example of the difference between active skepticism (critical and objective appraisal of the evidence available and the relative value of different sources of evidence), and passive denial(where the relative worth of different information sources is judged first and foremost by whether it fits the ideology of the appraiser).

winblowzxp is unaware of the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere but is happy to challenge the world scientific community with brilliant pieces of hi-jacked factoids that “The antarctic is thickening.” and that “the suns output has had more output since then.” and in part lends support to this avalanche of intellectual integrity by citing a movie by someone who actually once claimed that breast implants reduce the risk of breast cancer, left out contradictory data, and hand drew some of the graphs for his “documentary”.

But perhaps im being unfair and winblowzxp only pretended not to know how much CO2 there was in the atmosphere…as a trap that perhaps would lead up to an argument of incredularity…“but its so little a percentage…it couldn’t possibly change anything…and what about all that water vapour”...parroting a decade of vacuous arguments recyled over and over by a myriad of mirror imaged denial web sites.

winblowzxp claims to know that the sun is having more “output”..of what one may ask? Luckily others have answered the question with slighly more rigour and concluded that the sun cannot account for recent warming of the Earth’s atmosphere (published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society).

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/h844264320314105/?p=a9febefc274643058ae25d93b9686527&pi=0

winblowzxp falsely claims that the antarctic is thickening
One could first ask whether this is in reference to the west antarctic ice sheet or other regions of the continent, or perhaps whether this is in reference to snow fall or ice thickness etc…but obviously such specifics are of little concern when you know there is a conspiracy at hand…anyways please see the following if you are interested in what’s going on in Antarctica (published in Nature Geoscience).

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008–010

winblowzxp demands numbers, suggesting that he has never bothered to assess even the policy summary statements released by the IPCC, which are readily available on the web with the most cursory of google searches.. but perhaps their ready availability points once again to the desire of we nasty scientists to make up scary stuff to fill our vast laboratories with more mulla, dosh, cash, green stuff…give me more…its all I live for!!! (fill in appropriate maniacal laughter…you can give me Einstein’s hair and a hitler Mo if you think it will add to the general ambiance).

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

Add in passing, mention a warmer Greenland as if the Mediaeval warm period or the little ice age or regional variation in climate or natural causes of climate change were completely unknown to the world’s climate scientists or somehow presented real challenges to those who actually have to advise on the issues at hand. This type of argument is the equivalent of saying that because forest fires can occur naturally, they can’t have human causes.

Sorry for having a rant, but its fine for people to be ignorant, most of us are about most topics. It is more than fine to raise questions about the accuracy of a claim or challenge others for evidence. It is even fine to be lazy about certain topics that you couldn’t just be bothered researching. But may I remind winblowzxp that it is not fine to attack people’s integrity without a sausage of evidence, by makign claims that the thousands of papers which provide an overwhelming weight of evidence that 1) the global climate is experiencing directional and warming change, and 2) the majority of this change is caused by anthropogenic activities, are all writen by people who’s primary motivation is cash alone and by implication are therefore making up their results. By winblowzxp’s account ALL of these thousands of scientists are not just incompetent, but probably corrupt. That’s not a light accusation.

Well, prove it.

I guess that’s the great things about conspiracy theories, they provide such warmth and comfort for maintaining belief’s that couldn’t survive the harsh and filtering light of evidence.

@Critter38, nice post, but the problem with arguing with somebody on the Internet is that they don’t know when to lie down when they’ve had the crap beat out of them. They just argue with you until you’re sick of them, and think they’ve won when you give up.

Thanks IchtheosaurusRex, I tend to ignore these posts for exactly the reasons you mention, and frankly the world has rightfully moved on (at least in terms of the phase of the discussion). But occassionally, in a momentary lapse of reason on my behalf, I think its worth having a go…perhaps just for others who read the post and might mistakenly think the denier is actually well informed.

All the best.

@Critter38, great stuff in your post, especially the links. I still want to know where these conspiracy theorists think the money is coming from.

Equally dumbfounded. Three of the Forbes top ten largest public companies are oil and gas operations. Those in power like to retain it and over decades have fostered close networks with governments, and vice versa, because fossil fuels are vitally important to the economy of all industrialised nations. The whole system of the global economy is based on fossil fuels. Whether we like it or not, we all depend on it. A recent UNEP report suggests that annually the world spends $300 billion just on subsidies for fossil fuels, almost 1% of global annual GDP.

So if someone want’s to suggest that vested interest influences the world, absolutely. But to suggest that the current finanical and power structures are somehow in favour of those industries and individuals who wish to decouple society from a century of fossil fuel dependence, is simply ludicrous.