An Ice Free Arctic???... A Reality Soon?

[thomhartmann]

[tclambert]

1. This September may be it.

I remember in grade school, the history teacher told us about those old explorers, like Captain Cook, in their sailing ships searching for the Northwest Passage. And we kind of laughed at them because all us kids knew that the Arctic Ocean was blocked by ice all year long. Today shipping companies routinely use the Northwest Passage (and the Northeast Passage on the Russian side) as a shortcut from Europe to the Orient. Soon we'll be building deep sea oil rigs there because you know the obvious evidence of global warming will not stop the oil companies from wanting to drill for more of the very stuff that caused global warming.

I'm beginning to think the oil companies have a sound business model after all. They keep charging ahead and selling as much oil as they can up until catastrophic climate change destroys human civilization and they will never have to pay for the consequences of their toxic business practices. It's kind of brilliant, you know, in a Lex Luthor kind of way.