Living Without Ice

Here’s an article on the importance of sea ice, and how the arctic is steadily losing it.

Arctic summers will be ice-free in 30 years, possibly sooner if the current trend prevails. 

The sea ice conceals algae, which is the base of all arctic life.  Additionally, it lies across 90 billion barrels of oil and 1.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which Russia and U.S. would love to extract and burn, accelerating climate change greatly.

The author, Mark C. Urban, director of the Center of Biological Risk and a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, concludes: Humans have only ever lived in a world topped by ice. Can we now work together to protect Arctic ecosystems and allow the sea ice to return?

That’s a good way to end a piece like this, IMO.  One can almost read his thoughts.  “I think I’m going to end with a question, implying that the answer could actually be yes, we can do this.  Obviously, there is no precedent in human history for anything remotely resembling what needs to happen, but there’s a first time for everything.”