Judy - Ban Ki-moon should have saved himself a trip and kept warm. The reason the fuss over the artic has gone quiet of late is that the region has bounced back. Instead of declining catastrophically there was more summer sea ice this year than last year. Difficult to know whether that is the start of a long-term bounceback or a pause, but the more extreme forecasts (Artic disappearing in 2012 ect) have taken a knock. Note that one point of endless confusion is that the decline was in sea ice (which freezes around the artic proper every year then melts in summer). No one really knows if thre was any corresponding loss in the ice of the artic proper, as there were no proper measurements until comparatively recently. Meausring trends in sea ice is much easier, but then there is always the problem of deciding what has caused the changes.

What a load of bollocks curmudgeonathome. Have you been to the Arctic lately? Are you really suggesting that the polar bears, eskimos et al are bunging it on? For heaven's sake.

Thank you Judy for a fine article. A timely (and necessary) reminder.

Sure, Ban Ki Moon is sending a message - but what does he want us to do? What do you want? You want us to give up all coal fired power generation, well we can't can we. It's not realistic without a substitute, and the silly renewable sources sure don't stand up. Of course since the eco activists stopped Nuclear power development, that is now decades behind where it could have been.

Oh, they might be useful one day, but this could all blow over by then couldn't it?

We might find that CO2 is not the boogie man of climate.

It's possible that our current science is not adequate to explain climate to the degree we currently are told by self interested sources.

CO2 is not tracking temperature as all the models predicted, so maybe, just maybe, all our scientists who all subscribed to the CO2 theory are wrong and it's not the big factor. Like El Nino was unknown 40 years ago, so there might be something being missed now, but can a scientist ever admit he might be wrong? Not the big egos we see displayed here on OLO. It's easier just to flame anyone who disagrees isn't it ..

Science has been wrong before, it will be again and the big egos just don't want to admit it is possible. Not when "everyone" thinks this way, does anyone want to be seen as different.

In 50 years this period may be looked back on as being one of the silliest periods of self delusion in history.

All that will come out of Copenhagen, for all the good intentions, is a movement of money from a redistribution frenzy. It won't stop or change anything.

In the end we have to accept it, stop the hysterical doomsaying, and get on with life.

You have to stop denying that the climate will change regardless of your impotence and demands that it MUST not change.

The climate changes, yes it will.

KTranter - that is not exactly a constructive comment but I'm not suggesting for a moment that the polar bears or the inuit (not eskimos these days) are 'bunging it on' as you say. I'm suggesting that the activists and media ar bunging it on. the only suggestion that polar bears wer in any way endnagered as a species was in news reports. Have the inuit people been complaining?
As you may know there are two competing theories as to the change in summar ice in the artic of which global warming is the least satisfactory..