Meltdown: Ice Cracks at North Pole

From Live Science courtesy of AlterNet:

Satellite images of the Arctic show large openings in the perennial ice cover, yet another consequence of greenhouse warming, scientists announced this week.

The Arctic's thick perennial sea ice typically survives the warmth of the summer and lasts through the year. But satellite images taken in late August show that up to 10 percent of the perennial sea ice has been fractured by summer storms. The surprising change involves an area larger than the size of the British Isles.

The striking openings in the pack ice were found north of Svalbard, Norway and extend to the Russian Arctic all the way to the North Pole. This condition is likely due to the thinning and extra mobility in the European section of the central Arctic ice pack seen in recent years.

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Well, I guess the upside to this is that Russia finally gets to have its warm water port. Other than that, it's all downside, even for Russia: they'll get their port, yes, but they'll also get the ruined economy that necessarily comes with the massive worldwide floods that will result from all this melting ice, thereby obviating the need for increased sea trade. And let's not forget the release of all that CO2 and methane gas, which has been trapped for centuries in that pack ice, that will speed up greatly the rate of global warming.

Christ, I'm sick of explaining all this. How the fuck can anybody not take this shit seriously?

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