How climate change sparked a Canadian gold rush
“Still, there will probably be more chances for those who want to try. Most climatologists outside the Bush administration now concur that the Arctic is melting like a candle, and a good deal faster than anyone expected. In 2007 parts of the Arctic Ocean reached 8F above normal, another record, while Nasa satellite data reported at summer’s end just half the volume of Arctic ice there had been 48 months before. “It’s beyond our worst-case scenarios,” says Michael Byers, professor of global politics at the University of British Columbia, “and quite terrifying in terms of its potential scope.” Or, as Mark Serreze, senior scientist at a Colorado “snow-and-ice data centre”, recently told the Associated Press: “The Arctic is screaming.”
The question is, will it scream alone? “