Hasn’t happened in over 120 years – but may have been
predicted by one oil company 50 years ago
By Will Collette
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| Before and After: NASA images taken less than a week apart (July 8, left, and July 12) show surface ice mass before and after surface melting |
A new element was added to the
climate change debate a couple of weeks ago when NASA
reported that 97% of the surface ice in Greenland had started to melt. In
just one week’s time, surface melt went from 40% of total area (which is close
to normal summertime surface melting) to 97%.
Most of the scientific community believes the planet is undergoing significant climate change due to human activity especially since we started using fossil fuels in mass quantities. There are still hold-outs who deny the phenomenon exists. And this recent report got both sides mobilized.
Climate-change deniers point
out that these types of Arctic ice melts have happened before – the last in
1889. Ice core samples indicate that such melts do seem to occur more or less
every 150 years.
But this one is early in the
cycle and is not good news especially when combined with hard data showing
global temperature rise, ocean level rises, and shrinking glaciers and ice caps
worldwide.
These days, the climate
change deniers tend to blow off all the evidence as inconclusive at best or, at
worst, bogus.
However, in the days before
this debate took center stage, the fossil fuel industry was not so bashful
about claiming “credit” for its ability to melt our polar ice caps, as this
advertisement from the February
2, 1962 issue of LIFE Magazine shows:
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