I read this first line and was stunned: “The North Pole could turn into an open sea during the summer within 10 years, new research by scientists suggests.”

Whoa- what? The North Pole? Where Santa lives? Yes.

(Photo Credit: Daniel Heaf)

The North Pole may become open sea during the summer within a decade- that is major, soon to come, and will have massive consequences (although I can’t say what they will or would be exactly, it sounds really bad). The idea of the arctic pole becoming an ocean is terrifying- that part is supposed to be frozen. Polar bears, Santa, all that- where will they film the Coca-Cola commercials?

Ok, enough with the hyperbole. That is major, though. But what does it have to do with politics? Well…

1)    Climate change has no party- both sides of the aisle will eventually have to agree on some kind of action or we will argue our way into oblivion, into a situation where we will have no functional country to actually argue over the politics of. We will have the horrible situation where the coast is falling into the ocean and the center is too riddled with drought to grow food, and where there is rain it will be too much and do damage.

2)    The Arctic ice becoming a navigable seaway changes how nations that border the northern regions will interact with each other. It will dramatically change where and how goods can be shipped in the summer- which will mean a massive change in where and how much as far as the money goes- which is the real deal, as we all know.

3)    Who is Responsible? How will the U.N. deal with this? Who should be punished, if anyone? What will the payback be? This is similar to what is going on with poor nations asking the U.S. (and other rich countries) for money and aid to help with the pains that climate changes has inflicted- the climate change refugees it has created and all of the new international situations that that causes.

The ice that is there now is gauged at 1.8 meters thick, according to a team of researchers who just spent some time hiking across it. At that thickness it will melt next summer. That led to the idea that the arctic ice cap will be an open sea in under 10 years.
And you want to talk politics?

Guess what is coming up? Copenhagen. What the heckfire are those guys and girls going to do once they get there? This is just the next in line of environmental disaster announcements that show global warming and climate change coming on harder and faster than we thought in the first place, when we made up that now outdated and apparently ineffective Kyoto Protocol.

"Remove the Arctic ice cap and we are left with a very different and much warmer world. This could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emission from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes,” said Martin Sommerkorn, one of the senior climate change advisors for the WWF’s Arctic Program.
So, about those politics…