The Rational Mind

Expedition highlighting global warming called off due to extreme cold

A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.

“Ann said losing toes and going forward at all costs was never part of the journey,” said Ann Atwood, who helped organize the expedition.

Record cold temperatures in one part of the world aren’t conclusive evidence that global warming isn’t happening. However I can think of a few lessons this episode could teach:

  • The climate is inherently variable, unstable, and unpredictable

The explorers “were prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice has melted.”  Instead “outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero.”
We didn’t  blame the record number of ice storms this winter on a new ice age.  So why does the media pretend that any warm weather is “proof” of global warming?
If you can’t predict the temperature of a single trek, how can you predict the next 100 years?

  • Humans are much better equipped to deal with hot temperatures than cold ones.

The natural population of Antarctica is 0, while people have lived in Death Valley and the Sahara desert for thousands of years, (and even built cities).  By comparison to the South Pole, Sarah is a veritable rainforest.

  • Nature is deadly without the proper technology.

The explorers blamed the frostbite on damaged snowshoes, which are an essential tool of survival in the arctic wilderness -just as industry is essential to our survival in civilization.

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David Veksler

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One response to “Expedition highlighting global warming called off due to extreme cold”

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    Really, you need to think this one through. Most of you are not old enough to remember the hysteria in the 1970’s over the ‘impending ice age’&’global cooling’. One of the proposed solutions was to build many nuclear generating stations so that inexpensive electrical power would be available. The same folks who screamed about freezing protested nuclear energy as unsafe. When global cooling, complete oil depletion and over-population to the point of starvation did not occur, these people scurried into their dark corners to await the next “crisis of capitalism’ that they could champion. Today warming is the danger and CO2 the enemy. Same histrionics. Same slogans.

    Now let’s say CO2 is the enemy and MUST be reduced, dramatically as Kyoto says. Logic demands that we switch to nuclear power generation saving oodles of CO2. Yet no one offers that solution. Next is ‘carbon credits’. Without accurate measurements/controls, firms buy this ‘paper’ from traders CCX)who buy credits from corrupt 3rd world (transfer of wealth to poor nations) then invest in green stocks w/trading profits (free money is fun to invest). Firms then justify the same or greater production levels of CO2. Net result, no change in emissions, warming continues. Traders get rich. That is why Barclay’s is lobbying to be the world source of ‘carbon credit’ trading. Big players from Goldman-Sachs started CCX & ECX (both funded in part by Generation Investment LLP Al Gore et al). Duke Energy supports carbon credit trading. . . why? Because in the areas they operate, they are a monopoly. If they are forced to implement better technology they can pass the cost onto their captured customer base. A lot of money stands to be made from this without any verifiable value. Imagine, trading pieces of paper that have zero value and represent no increase in the GDP and that cannot be measured, monitored or controlled. It is a license to steal. . . . a 1920’s banker’s dream come true. It’s like permitting them to print their own money. No wonder the financiers are all over this like cops at a donut shop.

    And I have not yet even begun to address the science. . the enormity and scale of mathematical calculations, assumptions, error factors, forced vs non-force radiative corollaries along with non-constant patterns of absorption & dissipation. It is overwhelming. And computer models. . . . not super models, perhaps super computer models! As a scientist and especially one involved in climatology, you must know that climatology computer modelling can be used for diagnostics but never, ever, for prognostics. As far as climate change, I would find, given the laws of thermodynamics, that it will actually be far more likely that we enter a dramatic cooling period at some time in the next 100 years. That is historic and a pattern most certain to repeat. If it does not happen, perhaps we will have CO2 emissions to thank for it. This is not scientific, it is socio-political and should be labeled as such.

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