Green Options

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After the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge popped up in the news again, my mind couldn’t help but think of all of the great wildlife found in the arctic and in Alaska; the porcupine caribou, the arctic fox, and the polar bear. But do you know of the musk ox?

The musk ox is a large gentle creature similar in weight and stature to a buffalo. They have large curved horns and long shaggy hair and are more closely related to goats and sheep than to oxen. I first fell in love with these animals when I was researching the arctic a while back for work. For those of you that have watched the Planet Earth series you know how cute they are.

There’s nothing quite as nice as a really catchy title that perfectly sums up your story. If you want to leave it at that, then you’ve probably got the whole of the story. However if you want to know just a bit more about how climate change is affecting our planet’s poles, then keep reading.

Speaking in a telephone briefing last Friday, Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said that the Arctic and Antarctic are exhibiting opposite effects to the climate change affecting our planet.

“When you look in detail at the science behind the recent Arctic changes it becomes painfully clear how our understanding of climate impacts lags behind the changes that we are already seeing in the Arctic,” warned Martin Sommerkorn, one of the authors of a new report from conservation group the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

This report adds weight to a growing number of reports and findings that are pointing to 2008’s summer as a turning point for the Arctic region; one where there could be no sea-ice at all.

The Arctic ice has been at the center of environmental concern for a long time now. Ever since its ever-increasing decline in size came to a peak last year with the exposure of the fabled Northwest Passage, it has been the focus of scientific study and environmental bickering.

Traditionally March marks the time of year when the Arctic ice is at its highest extent after the Northern Hemisphere’s winter comes to a close. For 40 years NASA satellites have tracked the ice coverage of both Arctic and Antarctic.

So with March half way gone, what is the Arctic looking like?

We’ve written often recently off the challenges soon to be faced by the continuing melt of the Arctic. Without a doubt, there are resources up there that someone will attempt to get their grubby little hands on. And, with the price of oil continuing to skyrocket with each passing month, if oil is found in the north – not an unexpected possibility considering the nearby […]

Here’s a scary revelation: while climate change has, for the first time in recorded history, opened up the Northwest Passage and sparked a new land/fossil fuel/resource rush in the Arctic, it might also increase the risk of nuclear contamination in the region. A report in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs notes that, “Between 1958 and 1992, Russia dumped 18 nuclear reactors […]

It has been awhile since I’ve touched on the Arctic sea-ice dilemma plaguing us at the moment, and this recent story seemed worthy of bringing it back to the surface. Though we are only coming up on the Northern Hemisphere’s Fall/Autumn, experts do not like what they have seen so far.

Speaking at the Alaska Forum on the Environment, Ignatius Rigo, a University of Washington climatologist, believes that this […]

Never mind the ever-accelerating signs that the Earth is being stressed to multiple tipping (or breaking) points: rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, acidifying oceans, threatened fisheries, dwindling water resources. Like an addict who’s spiraling out of control, the world’s powers-that-be seem hellbent on taking a “just-this-once” […]

Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder report that the northern plateau ice caps of Baffin Island have shrunk by more than half in the past 50 years. At that rate, they say, the ice caps will be gone by mid-century.

Photo courtesy of Ansgar Walk, […]

Take 8,000 ice barges; mount two industrial ice cannons on each; add a windmill for power; let sit in the arctic with cannons blasting.

This might be the secret tech-heavy recipe for pepping up the faltering Atlantic ocean currents that heat Europe. So says industrial engineer, Peter Flynn of the University of Alberta. The cost: $50 billion USD. Ouch. Perhaps an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.

I know some of you may be disappointed by a return to the despondent and depressed Josh, but I do try and keep a bit of variety. Just keep in mind my last two posts: a greener Google and a larger, more efficient wind farm. Keep those in mind as we discuss the top end of our planet.

There’s no need to rehash what we already know. The Arctic is melting. It’s

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