Fiddling While Rome Melts

In 1909, when Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and four Inuit men named Ootah, Seeglo, Egigingwah, and Ooqueah first made it to the North Pole, they used wooden sleds and dog teams.

In five years, to recreate their attempt, you'll need a boat.

(CBS/AP) An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One speculates that summer sea ice might be gone in just five years. (emphasis mine)

Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.

"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.

Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.

This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models?

"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."

Meanwhile, in Washington:

Republicans were able to stall a broad energy bill in the Senate on Thursday morning, prompting Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, to excise controversial parts of the measure in hopes of moving the legislation forward quickly.

The unsuccessful move to advance the bill failed by one vote. Supporters managed to get 59 "yes" votes, but 60 were needed to invoke cloture, or move to consideration of the bill itself. Forty senators voted "no."

Among other things, the bill would require automakers to meet a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from the current 25 miles per gallon. Supporters of the legislation hail it as the first meaningful improvement in fuel-efficiency standards in three decades.

The bill was approved by the House a week ago, 235 to 181, well short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto threatened by President George W. Bush.

GOP leader Senator Mitch McConnell had claimed the bill included a "massive tax increase", damage domestic oil production, and lead to higher gas prices. Where did he get that idea?

The oil companies had pressed lawmakers to oppose repeal of the $13.5 billion in tax breaks provided them by Congress in 2004 and 2005. They argued the tax relief was essential as an incentive for domestic oil and gas production and refinery expansion and that rolling back the tax breaks would lead to higher energy prices.

Democrats released a report by the Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday that concluded that rescinding the tax breaks would have no impact on production decisions or "have any effect on consumer prices for oil and gas."

Still, you can understand why Senator McConnell may feel that the oil companies need help. Unless you remember news stories like this one from April:

Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, said profit climbed 10 percent to a first-quarter record after higher gasoline and diesel prices increased refining profit.

Sorry, Planet Earth, the GOP has determined that record oil company profits are more important than saving you.

I can only hope they all own really big houses, right on the shore. (Glub-glub.)

(p.s. for physics wonks: yes, I realize that melting arctic ice cap won't actually be the thing that increases sea levels, since it already floating in the ocean. But Greenland's ice cover is going too, and Antarctica's.)