A meeting of G7 finance ministers in the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit (near right center at the largest airline route nexus on this map) is so unusual – which is to say, Arctic – that it merits attention just for the unusual spotlight it shines on this Canadian first-nation realm. In fact, until I went looking for a map to show where the province is and found this one, I didn’t know or had forgotten that it has not only a distinct official language, Inuktitut, but a distinct-looking script adapted, I learn, from the Cree syllabary.

More important for us, while up there in the tundra the meeting got some news from there and also from a meeting in Winnipeg on a topic that is in somewhat bad political odor recently: climate change. This comes with a specific n. polar angle.

• Canadian Press – Chinta Puxley: Arctic ice melt affecting weather, wildlife, study finds ;
• CanWest News Service – Bruce Owen: Sea ice melting faster than expected ; Major study shows worst-case scenario is Arctic will be ice-free in three years: scientist ;
• CBC – John Bowman: Arctic ice melting faster than feared: study ;

In Iqaluit itself, the Pew Environment Group released a study suggesting $2.4 trillion in costs due to global warming by 2050 – counting Arctic melting alone. CanWest‘s Gordon Isfeld reports from the meeting. Whether the news is getting much of a listen from the gathered pols is unclear – as seen from this report, via the Winnipeg Free Press, in the Canadian Press: Activists cry foul as climate-change agenda frozen out of G7 meetings;

As for news on Iqaluit as International Venue:

• NPR: Canada’s Finance Minister Wrecks G7 Igloo ; Don’t worry,  it’s not a metaphor.
• Financial Times – Anna Fifield: Life in the Canadian Arctic ;
• Canadian Press – Julian Beltrame: G7 ministers have no appetite to talk about seals at Iqaluit conference.

For the record, you denialists: A peruse of comments to these stories finds many readers, emboldened by climategate, amazongate, emailgate, and Himalayagate, sharing their common received wisdom that somehow in the last few years Arctic sea ice has expanded at a growing rate. Ergo, crisis over so just chill, you greenies. This may be a distortion of the fact that winter re-freeze rates have been high lately. An ocean that each summer melts more than usual requires winter’s freeze to cover a lot more open water. But rates and absolute numbers are different things. Arctic sea ice coverage right now remains more than two standard deviations under the average for the years 1979-2000. And this does not even account for the thinness of the ice. Further NOAA discussion here.  Enfeebled as it is, the press (and surging bloggers and other on line news reporters) ought to spend a little more time debunking hokum in the public conversation. I say this knowing full well the unimpressive power of the press to put stickum on such stories. One debunks something, it goes on anyway and the editor says we can’t just keep running the same story. Nonetheless, the future is opinion. The condition of the right now is closer to factual.

- Charlie Petit

Image source ;

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories, Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.