“In the first place there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels […] There are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered [...] Rainfall might get heavier in some regions and other places might turn to desert [...] [Several countries]  would have their agricultural output reduced or destroyed [...] Man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical [...] Once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible.” —Exxon senior scientist James F. Black, 1978 In the summer of 2001, Ben Saunders, then just 23 years old, tried together with a friend to reach the North Pole. It was rough going over the ice, and they eventually turned back. But in 2003, Saunders made it to the Pole on his own. And in the spring of 2004, the freelance adventurer attempted a solo trip across the Pole from Cape Artichevsky in Siberia to Canada. Seventy-two days after starting out, he had to be rescued about 30 miles from Canada because open water blocked his way. He had trekked 599 miles, often without mittens or hat, logging temperatures as high as 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celsius) compared with 2001 when they had averaged 33 F. (0.5 C). “The weather this year was the warmest since they began keeping records,” he told a reporter at the Ottawa Citizen before flying back to his U.K. home. “The temperatures were incredibly warm ... I had days when I could ski with no gloves and no hat at all, just in bare hands, because I was too hot."  The warmest since they began keeping records. That, of course, has become the refrain of our age. This week the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that the Siberian Arctic saw an unprecedented 100.4 F in June 2020 (38 C). In its annual Arctic Report Card released Monday, the National Snow and Ice Data Center told us the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. Monthly temperatures in January-June this year in Siberia were as high as 18.5 F (10 C) above average.  Read more