It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that air pollution is a threat to public health. So why are the leaders of 17 states trying to rollback the EPA’s new greenhouse gas regulations?

You’d think everyone would agree that clean air is essential for a healthy, prosperous nation, but recent action by industry and GOP leaders proves otherwise. Industry groups and over a dozen Republican-led states are asking the Supreme Court of the United States to block the EPA’s newest round of greenhouse gas regulations–claiming that they represent a “brazen power grab” by the Obama administration.

The new greenhouse gas regulations were adopted during the Congressional gridlock of 2011. The new rules require new power plants, factories and other such stationary facilities to limit carbon emissions. According to a 2007 SCOTUS ruling, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are air pollutants, making them subject to EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act. According to the LA Times, the fossil fuel industry claims that “the law covered only air pollutants that make it hard to breath, such as smog, not those that act to trap solar energy in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.” At the time, four Supreme Court justices agreed with this claim, which is why GOP leaders feel confident enough to resurrect the fight.

“Texas, Florida and 15 other Republican-led states joined with business and energy groups in accusing the president and his EPA of overstepping their authority. California, Illinois and 13 other Democratic-led states joined with environmentalists in supporting the EPA’s rules,” reports the LA Times.

The main complaint of these politicians and their industry supporters is that such regulations are bad for business. Namely, the coal-fired power plant business. Rather than protect the long-term health and welfare of the air we all breathe (yes, even Big Oil and Coal executives), these politicians would rather mortgage public health for a few more years of climate-changing energy extraction.

In the end, this issue comes down to two things: 1) the GOP and its friends in industry are upset that they EPA was able to circumvent the joke that is our Congress, and 2) they don’t want to change, especially if it means losing a single cent of their already massive profits.

That’s right, as always, it all comes down to money. As predicted, those in the fossil fuel industry are trying to frighten the public (and bully the EPA) by saying that compliance with the greenhouse gas regulations will cause energy prices to skyrocket. Environmentalists say this is a gross exaggeration.

“The Democratic-led states, in a brief filed with the court, pointed to the ‘recent practical experience’ in California and New York showing that switching to low carbon energy sources can produce ‘more efficient and less polluting industrial processes, delivered at a reasonable cost,'” reports the LA Times.

Ultimately, the decision will come down to a divided SCOTUS, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy likely holding the deciding vote. He was the difference maker when the court faced this issue in 2007, but since then has voiced concern about over-regulation by the administration.

What do you think? Are the new greenhouse gas emissions necessary to protect public health or evidence of a power-hungry President? Share your thoughts in a comment.

Related on Ecosalon:

How Many Trees Should You Plant To Offset Greenhouse Gases?

8 Tips for Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

The Dirt on Clean Coal: Looking Beyond The Alternative Fuel Hype

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We’ve been advised that we humans are destroying the earth with each step, each breath. But it really is hard to fathom exactly what that means. The numbers and premonitions aren’t tangible enough to make our greenhouse gases dilemma something everyone actively fights against on a daily basis.

How about if you knew how many trees you are destroying, and that you have the potential to re-plant, with each press of the “on” button or twist of the keys? The following list gives you a rough idea of how many trees your CO2 emissions equates to on a yearly basis.

The following calculations related to appliances are based on a 2,000-square-foot household and average use of them in a family. The car and motorist calculations were made by Arnia Doria, former Honda executive. Hopefully this list gives you a boosted environmental conscience and help the world cut down on its greenhouse gases.

Can’t plant yourself or want to find a way to get more involved? Organizations like Trees for the Future, Tree People, the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and GROW can bring action to your intention.

So, the question stands:

How many trees do you need to plant to offset the CO2 emissions of a year’s average use of…

…an unleaded gasoline-fueled vehicle?

6 trees

…a 400cc motorcycle?

6 trees

…a television?

2 trees

…a washing machine?

2-3 trees

…a dryer?

20 trees

…a dishwasher?

10 trees

…a microwave?

4 trees

…an electric heater?

90 trees

…an air-conditioner?

55 trees

…a refrigerator?

21 trees

…a stove?

19 trees

Related on EcoSalon

A Guide to Foraging for Food: 20 Tasty Wild Plants

15 Ways to Decorate with Plants

8 Tips for Reducing Your Carbon Emissions

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks

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Your carbon footprint is determined by the amount of carbon dioxide that you emit as you ago about your day-to-day activities. Even the most menial of tasks, like turning on the TV and driving a car, add to your carbon footprint.

Some more obvious contributors, such as air travel, are also a huge burden – air travel alone accounts for 3.5 percent of the human contribution to global warning – but it is more so the compounding effects of continuous simple, mindless tasks, such as turning on the lights in your house, that is making the difference. The following 8 ways to reduce your carbon footprint and save the world are just a few ways you can turn the difference in Mother Nature’s favor.

According to the most recent research, the earth’s glaciers are melting some  ten times faster than previously predicted and greenhouse gases are at the highest levels ever. This has caused species to increasingly go extinct, weather conditions to reach new extremities, sea levels to rise and the incidence of long-term droughts. In 2011, the US set a record with $14-billion worth of weather disasters.

According to the UN, each American is, on average, responsible for some 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. The world’s average under 10 tonnes per capita. Clearly, Americans can get by on fewer emissions, if the rest of the world serves as an example, and there are many ways to both reduce and offset output.

All it takes are a few simple tips to reduce your carbon overload. Start with these 8 tips:

1. Turn down your thermostat 2 degrees in the winter and up 2 degrees in the summer to save 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (and nearly $100 in heating and cooling bills).

2. Replace three bulbs in your house with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs and save $60 a year. If every household in the U.S. did this, it would cut a trillion pounds of carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere.

3. Unplug electronic devices, even when they are turned off, to save drawing power throughout the day – 1 watt per hour per plug.

4. Weatherize your home. Weatherization is essentially weather-proofing, or protecting the interior from outdoor elements. This can save hundreds of dollars and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

5. Install double-pane windows to save 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

6. Buy local produce to reduce the demand for fruits and vegetables that require thousands of miles of transportation to get to your local supermarket.

7. Walk or bike for short distances. For longer distances, try to share a ride or purchase an energy-efficient car. Consider carpooling with a work buddy to work in the morning and home in the evening or with friends when going out to reduce fuel costs and emissions.

8. Offset your emissions by calculating your output at Go Zero, where you can then donate to plant the equivalent number of trees needed to compensate for your carbon footprint.

Photo Credit: Twicepix

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Carbon dioxide levels on Earth have reached an all-time high. Are we making a new planet? Can we live on it?

Sitting in a packed theater on opening weekend of “Man of Steel,” I couldn’t help notice the similarities between Earth and Krypton, Superman’s home planet (I won’t ruin the movie for you, I promise. The 40 unnecessary minutes of excessive violence will do that for you). Dissension, manipulation of resources, and Krypton’s caste system on par with our economic apartheid, mirror some of Earth’s biggest crises of late. No doubt the parallels weren’t coincidental.

Krypton is clearly in trouble, facing a fate that can’t be avoided, as we know from previous Superman films (or comics, if you have the time for that sort of reading). A highly advanced culture couldn’t figure out how to harness unlimited energy from its star, and, well, poor Kal-El was sent off into the universe orphaned by the devolving stubbornness of his people.

If only we could set a course for another, more hospitable planet.

But we can’t. And we’re not doing this one any favors lately, either, reports Business Insider: “[C]arbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere reached a major milestone: a daily average above 400 parts per million. The new high — the highest in human history — was recorded at two separate stations — one in Hawaii and the other in San Diego, California.” That’s a 22 point increase in ten years. And nearly a 200 point jump in the last 200 years, since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Since then, carbon dioxide levels have increased steadily, about two parts per million every year. The website 350.org says the “safe level” for carbon dioxide in the air is 350 parts per million.

If you’re not sure what the big deal is, expert Bob Ward of the London School of Economics and Political Science said it’s creating a “prehistoric” climate situation, in which “human societies will face huge and potentially catastrophic risks.”

According to the EPA, carbon dioxide accounted for 84 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2011. While naturally present in the environment, the majority of “problem” carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil). It traps heat, which is actually a good thing in small doses (it makes the planet, and particularly Los Angeles, pretty hospitable), but in these unprecedented levels, it contributes to global warming, impacting all life on the planet.

The continual rise in CO₂ levels could lead to more melting of ice sheets and higher levels of methane gas from permafrost melt. Climate scientist Michael Mann told the Huffington Post that these types of CO₂ levels haven’t been sustained in more than 10 million years (during the Miocene period). And while we may not care if a few species here or there die off (we lose about 0.1 percent of all species per year), many of them impact our own species as well. You see, all life is connected. And when we start killing off any one of us Earthlings, we inevitably create problems for all the rest of us, too.

We’re already seeing the consequences of greenhouse gases (despite what conservatives tell you). Like Krypton, we’re also becoming keenly aware of the issues we’ve created with digging too deep into the planet for energy. And, sadly, while the chances of a (really, really hot) superhero coming to save our planet are pretty slim, we could sure use some superstrength right now in helping us evolve out of our dependence on industry and mined energy. In that respect, we can all don our capes and adjust our energy consumption, seeing fossil fuels as the villains they truly are.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: hiperterminal

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Carrying the torch for green.

In a London Olympics 2012 poster titled “being greener”, the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games vows to keep this year’s Games eco-friendly.

London’s Olympic Park will be one of the biggest city parks newly constructed in Europe for more than 150 years. The Games will host 26 Olympic events, 20 Paralympic events, 14,700 athletes, 21,000 media, and 10.8 million ticket holders. While it will inevitably boost the city’s economy, the strain on resources is unavoidable. The Organizing Committee is working hard to maintain a high level of sustainability despite all that needs to be constructed, and the the “being greener” poster is a representation of London’s conscious efforts to make its Olympics the greenest of them all.

The Park will be equipped with some of the most cutting-edge technology to curtail the Games’ greenhouse gas emissions, preserve the natural habitat surrounding the area, as well as to recycle, reuse and reduce all waste. In a pamphlet distributed by the Organizing Committee, the extent of London’s green efforts are detailed.

• 20% of the energy used on the Olympic Park will come from renewable sources
• 4,000 newts and hundreds of toads have been removed from the Park to be protected
• 90% of the materials from the demolition of building in the Olympic Park have been recovered so they can be reused or recycled.
• 50% of materials that are being used to construct the Park will be transported by water or rail, saving thousands of trips on local roads.
• A 120-meter wind turbine in the Park will produce enough electricity for 1,000 homes
• 80 lampposts, 2 tons of red bricks, and 76 tons of paving stones will be saved for reuse on the Park.
• A 3-kilometer footpath and cycle-way will be improved for the local population as well as wildlife.
• Rubbish was removed from 8.35 kilometers of waterways running through the Olympic Park
• 45 hectares of wildlife habitats will be left on and around the Park after the games

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

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That cup of coffee from the drive-thru costs a lot more than just $1.49.

Bleary-eyed and impatient, you’ve got an extra five minutes in your morning commute to grab the one thing you feel is an absolute essential to get you into working mode: a cup of coffee. Fighting for a parking space and standing in line behind the kind of people who need to stare at the menu for five minutes – people who aren’t in a hurry – doesn’t appeal. So you do what thousands of other Americans do each and every morning, and pause just long enough to drive through a Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons or other quick coffee hotspot.

For those of us who can’t seem to get going in the morning without caffeine, it’s not hard to see the appeal. But have you ever thought about the environmental impact of that cup of coffee, between idling in the drive-thru, tossing out all those disposable cups, and consuming products that probably aren’t all that great for you?

Americans waste 3.8 million gallons of gasoline every single day by voluntarily idling their cars – that’s excluding the time spent in traffic jams. With just five minutes of idling per day, your drive-thru coffee is costing you an average of 10 gallons of fuel and 220 pounds of CO2 emissions over the course of a year.

And then there’s the styrofoam. Most fast-food coffee retailers with drive-thrus are still using  cheap and totally non-biodegradable disposables to dole out cups of coffee to millions of people every day. Each year, Americans throw out 25 BILLION styrofoam cups, which will still be sitting in landfills 500 years from now. Dunkin’ Donuts is actually looking for a greener cup, but it hasn’t yet found one that will keep customers’ hands cool and coffee hot while also being recyclable or compostable. The chain is planning an in-store styrofoam recycling program for 2013, but when you’re driving through, how likely is it that you’ll use it?

Speaking of Dunkin’ Donuts, the brand’s fans tend to be a rabid bunch. Their slogan, “America Runs on Dunkin'” is a deliberate reflection of their reputation as the total opposite of Starbucks – simple and unpretentious. It also says something unpleasant about America’s fast food obsession, and the fact that as a nation, we really do subsist on a whole lot of diabetes-inducing, ultra-processed food and drink. But back to the point. Dunkin’ Donuts has a long-running Facebook Fan of the Week promotion, in which many of its 6.6 million Facebook fans post photos of themselves eating or drinking the brand’s products on its Facebook page. Thousands of fans also changed their Facebook photo to a picture of the brand’s Coffee Coolatta drink, implicitly endorsing the product to all their friends. That’s some serious devotion.

Dunkin’ Donuts isn’t all bad. You might be surprised to learn that all of Dunkin’ Donuts’ espresso drinks – that’s right, all of them – are made with fair trade espresso beans. Compare that to Starbucks, where the percentage of fair trade espresso beans is just 3.7 percent. Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t make a big deal about this fact, advertising it with just a small sticker on the doors of each location. While Starbucks’ massive reach means it’s still the biggest buyer of fair trade beans in America, Dunkin’ Donuts is no small player, and choosing fair trade beans is a pretty big deal. Too bad the same can’t be said for many other chains.

And what about all of those added ingredients like flavored syrups, artificial sweeteners and non-dairy creamers? What’s in that stuff, anyway? Unsurprisingly, the main ingredient in liquid non-dairy creamer is partially hydrogenated oil, followed by sugar, corn syrup, a sweetener called sodium stearyl lactate, the milk protein sodium caseinate, additional processed fats and salts. Powdered creamer contains corn syrup solids, vegetable oil solids and a similar mix of unpronounceable ingredients, including dipotassium phosphate – phosphoric acid, which is also used as pesticide.

Let’s just say you get a medium Dunkin’ Donuts coffee five mornings per week, 51 weeks out of the year. At $1.49 per cup, that adds up to $379.95. That’s a lot of cash. With all of these expenses, both out-of-pocket and indirect, making coffee at home has never been more appealing. Especially when you could be doing it with a damn sexy French Press.

Photo: PSD

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I’m no chemist. In fact, I get a little jittery around (and refuse to make eye contact with) the Periodic Table on my son’s closet door. But, given the subject matter here, I must do my best to understand the basic causes surrounding greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on global warming. At times, the concepts seem simple to me (I “get” the greenhouse metaphor) and other times my eyes tragically glaze over when well-meaning scientists try to explain exactly what’s happening here that’s threatening the lives and future of my children. But mental gymnastics aside (sorry folks, some of it is hardcore science), I just read something that I can get my wee right brain around: the air is sooty and we should clean it up.

“A massive simulation of soot’s climate effects finds that basic pollution controls could put a brake on global warming, erasing in a decade most of the last century’s temperature change,” says a Wired Science post. What they’re getting at is that greenhouse gas emissions aside, which are a huge problem and require long-term solutions (“new energy technology and profound changes in lifestyle”), our habit of pumping good ol’ soot into the atmosphere (wood and dung burning, diesel exhaust, small boilers, residential coal use) is something that 1) is a huge part of the problem of global temperature change, and 2) we should be able to get a handle on for immediate impact using simple tools that already exist, like exhaust filters and clean-burning stoves.

The article is based in part on the work of Stanford University climate scientist Mark Jacobson, who conducted the simulation. He found that soot, or black carbon, plays a critical role in global warming, a fact apparently uncovered by prior studies, as well, including work done by NASA back in 2003. But Jacobson’s work takes the simulation a step further, looking into the immediate effects of decreasing the emissions of said soot. The good news, he reports, is that soot has a lifetime in the atmosphere of just a few weeks, while carbon dioxide, for example, has a lifetime of 30 to 50 years. So getting our black carbon problem under control could have a quick and significant effect on global temperatures.

“If you totally stop CO2 emissions today, the Arctic will still be totally melted,” says Jacobson. If we pull in the reins on soot, “the reductions start to occur pretty much right away. Within months, you’ll start seeing temperature differences.”

Explains the article’s author, Brandon Keim: “Soot comes from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and also from the burning of wood or dung for fuel. Crop residue and forest-burning are another major source.”

The 2003 NASA simulation said soot was responsible for one quarter of all global warming in the 20th century. And soot has been identified a key contributor to crises ranging from to glacier melts to abnormal monsoon activity. The United Nations, says Keim, “puts the soot-related death toll at 1.5 million people annually.”

If stopped tomorrow, the disappearance of soot would could drop average world temps by about a degree Fahrenheit. “That’s about half the net warming – total global warming, minus cooling from sun-reflecting aerosols – experienced since the beginning of the industrial age,” says Keim. “The effect would be even larger in the Arctic, where sea ice and tundra could rapidly refreeze.”

The big picture impact of a wide-scale soot reduction effort could buy time and delay “tipping points” in climate change as greenhouse gases continue to take their toll. While the last year’s draft climate treaty generated in Copenhagen last year doesn’t say anything “soot-specific,” the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) will be discussing soot problems next year. Meanwhile, here in the States, the EPA will soon begin its own black carbon study. In the meantime, it’s nice to know that there may be some immediate answers out there if we just listen up and put a lid – or a filter – on it.

Image: stoixeia

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Put a cork in it! That’s the old school way of bottling wine, one that benefited our environment in a variety of ways. But synthetic corks and screw tops were introduced so that getting to that yummy grape was more convenient, and to prevent the wine from spoiling. Some three percent to 15 percent of all bottles sealed with corks go bad due to a naturally occurring chemical compound called trichloroanisole (TCA).

To save the billion dollar industry, wineries around the globe transitioned to synthetic corks made form plastic and now, user-friendly screw caps.

In 2004, Corbett Canyon, the largest producer of U.S. wines adopted easy-to-use screw seals, mostly to respond to the perception of cork causing tainting. But the synthetics are not limited to cheapo wines. RH Phillips and Whitehall Lane converted, as well as Washington’s Hogue Cellars. And it’s not just the inexpensive ones. Napa’s PlumpJack Winery sealed half of its 2000 Reserve Cab ($100 a bottle) with plastic caps.

The threat to the cork industry pits the European farmer against U.S. corporations like Dow (the maker of Agent Orange, pesticides and PVC plastics) which heads a plastic cork research and development group called Neocork, that is backed by California wine makers and reported investors like Bill Gates.

Why the environment is getting screwed:

The Trees

No trees are cut down to make the cork for stoppers. Instead, bark is stripped every nine years or so with hand-held axes and grows back to fortify a thriving ecosystem. Cork oak trees can yield material for up to 200 years if stripped of bark to maintain their health. The cork oak forests offer considerable shelter to plant and animal species in the Mediterranean, including endangered Barbara deer, the Imperial Iberian eagle and the Iberian lynx. Working the land provides jobs for some 100,000 people in Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia, France and Portugal. The regeneration of the trees is also effective in absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide, thereby offsetting greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. The cork industry group APCOR estimates the amount of CO2 emissions soaked up in each summer harvest in Portugal equals the emissions of 185,000 cars.

Emissions and Reuse

Cork has emerged as a popular green material for chic flooring and wall covering, fashion bags, pens and mini boards. It is easy to recycle and re-purpose and inexpensive to produce.  Meantime, synthetic alternatives are difficult to recycle and require much more energy to manufacture. Cork has been widely embraced by green designers and artisans for products that are easy to manufacture and install in our homes. Aluminum screw tops are often tossed out. At one UK site, blog visitors recommended these uses: Cookie cutters for dough, donations to schools for arts and crafts projects, or drill a hole in them for crazy jewelry. In other worlds, the upcycling is slow on the uptake.

Wine preservation versus earth preservation

As Grist so aptly points out, the environmental impact of the plastic screw top has less to do with leaching plastics and dangers to the grape than with “overall manufacturing footprints.” From the health of the trees, to the sustainability of the ecosystem and livelihood of tree farmers, plastic bottle tops are barking up the wrong tree, just as all the plastic conveniences that came before the newest darlings of the beverage industry.

Images: TheBusyBrain, Panda, Atlantawineguy, The Nibble, Corkfloor,

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Did you know that global livestock production is responsible for more greenhouse gases than transportation? According to Mark Bittman, eating less meat could have a greater affect on the environment than reducing the mileage we put on our cars!

As the Food Revolution’s grumblings grow louder, more practical guides to eating are becoming available to help us make sense of all the food and health information we’re bombarded with. Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating is one such book, written by Mark Bittman – a food journalist, culinary aficionado, and cookbook writer, who is perhaps best known for his cookbook, How to Cook Everything, first published in 1998.

Focused on making sustainable, lifestyle change, Food Matters includes a practical guide to eating with specific meal plans and simple, daily recipes to follow. Additionally, the book discusses agriculture, food and American eating habits, the environmental impact of our eating culture and a brief history of how we got where we are today.

Written as a personal account and journey about changing his own eating habits, Bittman makes a compelling argument as to why the rest of us should follow his lead. After all, who wouldn’t want to lose weight, be healthier, save money and reduce global warming? Count me in!

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Climate change is nonsense.

If I’m ever lucky enough to bump into millionaire Donald Trump (say at a real estate sale or divorce court), I will rush up to the man and shake his hand. He’s opened my eyes to this global warming hoax once and for all. Addressing an audience of 500 admirers at the Trump National Golf Club (Westchester, N.Y.), he uttered these immortal words:

With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore…Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn’t care less. It would make us totally non-competitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity.

I bet those countries aren’t laughing now!

But if there’s one person who does look stupid, it’s me. All these years believing in the power of science, logic, reasoned argument and differentiating between weather and climate, and now the Donald’s blown that baloney into the weeds. But I can take it – after all, I’d rather get my story correct than support some thoughtless populist prejudice designed to further the political agendas of self-serving elites. Don, you’re the man.

But I want more from our Gore-slaying guru of truthiness. I want him to explain the specifics. What say you to these thorny issues, Mr. Trump?

1. Increasingly extreme weather. Any fool can see that the earth can’t be warming up if it’s snowing! So what is causing all this weird weather right now? There’s only one rational conclusion: the earth must be cooling down. (I’m blaming all these wind turbines, it’s like global air-con).

2. Crops are on the run. Guatemalan coffee growers are moving their plantations, claiming that climbing temperatures are putting their livelihoods at risk. Scottish soft fruit is in danger of getting squished. Indian farmers are insuring themselves against crop failure. To them all I say – what’s wrong with tinned food? This loose food fad has to stop sometime, might as well be now. (And don’t get me started on that organic rubbish).

3. The mountains are thawing. The glaciers are melting on Everest and the Himalayan snows are turning into lakes. What’s that about, Don? No, I’ve got it – summer’s coming! Of course. These things are so obvious if you spend the time to really think them through.

4. The seas are rising. The island chain of the Maldives is sliding beneath the waves, and its inhabitants are responding with heavy investment in a zero-carbon economy. Heavy. See what I’m saying? The heavier it is, the less it floats. (Pro tip, guys: use coal, it gets lighter the more you use it).

5. The ice-caps are melting. The Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up (here’s the latest from the US Geological Survey), making the oceans rise twice as fast as they were doing in the 1970s. The summer polar ice cap is 20% reduced from its 1979 coverage. Where’s it all going? It’s this snow we’re having! Gotcha. The ice isn’t melting, it’s just moving around! Give it a few years and it’ll be right back at the poles again, you’ll see.

Am I on the right track, Don?

Image: Trump Ice Skating Rink in Central Park, New York, by James Trosh

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