The first story was published by the Independent newspaper in England. Written by their "science editor," Steve Connor, this piece was replete with dire warnings and shocked proclamations of how it all seemed "unthinkable" that all the ice at the North Pole was melted because of globaloney.
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
Yes, it's the end of civilization as we know it. We're all doomed. Erect the tombstone over planet earth now.
Yet, by January of 2009, another story came out that proved that sea ice at the poles are exactly the same now than it was when scientists first began to measure it starting in 1979. In other words, no loss at all.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
If you'll excuse the pun, these two stories are polar opposites.
In the first story, we see "scientists" wringing hands and worrying.
The polar regions are experiencing the most dramatic increase in average temperatures due to global warming and scientists fear that as more sea ice is lost, the darker, open ocean will absorb more heat and raise local temperatures even further. Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who was one of the first civilian scientists to sail underneath the Arctic sea ice in a Royal Navy submarine, said that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented melting of the ice at the North Pole.
But the second story explains just how wrong they were.
Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
So, what we see here in the first story is "scientists" that imagine that they "know" that everything will travel in a straight line from their claims to the end of life as we know it. They make no allowance for the reality that, like it has for millions of years, this planet might just know what it’s doing after all! And we find them shocked and surprised by the time the second story rolls around that they couldn't have been more wrong.
Could anyone find two better stories to reveal the farce that is the religion of the globaloney crowd?
