Finally! I've Been Waiting For This!

Ok, so I haven't been waiting for the Northwest Passage to open up. I haven't thought about it at all in fact---maybe never. But this article has things to say about the opening of the Passage, a few of which I am compelled to refute.

First let us start with the opening statement:

The most direct route through the Northwest Passage has opened up fully for the first time since records began, the European Space Agency says.

What they don't bother to mention until half-way into the article is that records began in 1978. That's just a mere 29 years of data. Not nearly enough to claim that "global warming" is the cause of ice reduction. In fact, only three years prior on August 28, 1975 Newsweek printed an article in which climatologists were discussing possible means of melting the ice caps because there was a global cooling scare. Here is a scan of the actual page from the magazine. The skeptic in me says that they will throw out whichever term is more frightful at the time.

Next let's talk about the next fallacy:

It says this made the passage "fully navigable" for the first time since monitoring began in 1978.

According to this there are several expeditions that resulted in full navigation by ship from one end of the Northwest Passage to the other. And here is an excerpt from another source:

The Passage would not be successfully navigated until the twentieth century when, in 1903-06, Roald Amundsen, (who would later beat Scott to the South Pole), made the full transit by sea in the Gjöa. It was left to a Norwegian to accomplish the crossing of the Northwest Passage, but as he himself pointed out, the fact that it was possible had been due to the earlier explorations by British seamen.

All their 29 years of records aside, the pass was navigated, and quite a lot. In fact, many ships became frozen in the ice, because---brace for it---sometimes ice melts and sometimes it refreezes!!!

Finally, let us talk about the Canadians:

Canada says it has full rights over those parts of the Northwest Passage that passes through its territory and that it can bar transit there.

But this has been disputed by the US and the European Union.

This is true. Would the US allow foreign vessels to "sail" from the Atlantic through all the great lakes and down into the Mississippi for an alternative route to the Gulf of Mexico? No. If the territory belongs to Canada, they can say and do whatever they want when it comes down to it. And frankly, why does the US or the EU give a crap?

There is also another new post on Red Revews.