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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (7194)	4/13/2009 9:08:51 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

MM, Did you know that the Arctic Ice Pack prevents sailing the NW passage without an icebreaker, EXCEPT during some summer months? THUS, even if they are exploring for mineral rights, they still have to deal with nearly year round ice, or large flows. The article you provided certainly makes more of an assertion attempting to tie in the surveying and ice melt, but that doesn't make it relevant. The reality is that they are surveying in anticipation of exploiting the area once there is a regional accord, not just because they expect the ice to melt. I think the technology is there to fully exploit the area, regardless of the ice pack, if the profit is sufficient. And btw, my friend. Did you know the first transit of the NW passage was in 1588 (presumably without an icebreaker)?? And then, in 1640 another Spaniard was the last to sail the NW passage for almost 70 years (at least according to records that show a passage in ). This was, quite likely, due to the Maunder Minimum that would have frozen that route shut until the early 1700's: The Spaniard Bartholomew de Fonte claimed to have sailed from Hudson Bay to the Pacific via the strait in 1640 en.wikipedia.org Also, they were asserting that the sea ice levels in 2007 were an "historic minimum". But that's clearly not the case given that Spanish sailors without the benefits of icebreakers were transiting the Northern passage in the 1500's: wattsupwiththat.com Furthermore, there have been periods of time, during the Medieval period, when According to the testimony of Viking sagas such as the Saga of Erik the Red and Grœnlendinga saga, from approximately AD 1000 to 1200 (a conservative interval that also happens to include the dates allotted to some of the larger Norse ships), the Arctic appears to have been much warmer even than now, as full-fledged farming created a sustainable economy for the Norse and Icelandic settlers of Greenland. This warm period is known as the Medieval Warm Period and just preceded the Little Ice Age which ultimately led to the demise of the Norse colonies in Greenland. en.wikipedia.org So guess what MM.. That Medieval "Warm Period" was HOTTER THAN NOW, but it wasn't "irreversible". In fact, that warm period was the height of the global climatic "pendulum swing" which then swung back to extreme cold to the "Wolf Minimum". commons.wikimedia.org It's PRETTY CLEAR EVIDENCE that we're JUST NOW getting back to the levels experienced during the Medieval Maximum. But YOU and many of your ilk, are suggesting that we're never going to experience another "minimum".. that GW is irreversible and a threat to all of life on the planet. That's just silly and your evidence to substantiate it is WHOLLY INADEQUATE to meet even a minimum scientific standard. Just get a grip on yourself.. It wasn't the end of the world back during the Medieval Maximum when temps were as high, or even higher, than now and humanity survived and thrived JUST FINE afterward.. We'll survive this as well.. And you'd better start praying that we're not heading for another mini-Ice Age.. THAT is far more of a threat than GW. Hawk