Here’s the popup message solicitation you get when you visit the website for the first time:
Climate change is melting the North Pole and it’s no longer safe for Santa and his Workshop. So our dear old friend is packing up the sleigh to find somewhere else to live.
You can help! Move your mouse over this website to find gifts you can buy Santa to help him set up a temporary Workshop and protect the North Pole for his return.
Of course, you’re savvy enough to know we won’t be sending actual gifts to Santa. You will receive a tax receipt for 100% of your purchase and proceeds will be used by the David Suzuki Foundation to support our critical work to protect nature and the environment from threats like climate change.
Buying these green gifts and personalized ecards on behalf of hard-to-buy-for friends or relatives on your holiday list is a great way to show you’re thinking of them — and the planet!
Sincere thanks,
The David Suzuki Foundation
This is nothing more than a thinly veiled revenue generator for the foundation.
No shame, no scruples, just send money. Is it any wonder informed people are doubting the climate change issue when presented with crap like this?
h/t to Mike Bromley in Canada who writes:
Canadian geneticist-turned-environmentalist David Suzuki targeted children in his latest outburst of emotionally-charged enviro-gab, this time scaring the fun out of Christmas by warning that Santa’s home was melting. In a post-black-Friday period of climate-ethical circus generation, this takes the cake. This is beyond reprehensible.
Here’s what the North Pole looks like today:
UPDATE: Here’s a clip from 1972 showing Suzuki comparing humans to maggots in his own words. Looks like that must have been his Che’ Guevara period. (h/t Daily Bayonet)
Yes, I am. Are YOU denying that the Arctic was warmer in the 1920’s or during the Viking exploration period than it is now? Are you denying that the Arctic was warmer for most of the Holocene than it is now? If so, then YOU are the denier, not I. The problem is that the current records go back so few years that to call today’s Arctic temperatures “extreme” is arrogance beyond belief. The Arctic was likely completely ice-free in summer for thousands of years earlier in this interglacial period. I would venture to say that the extent that we have summer ice now in the Arctic is likely new in the past 2000 years or so. Prior to that time, going back to about 8000 years or so, the Arctic was likely completely ice-free in summer. That was also a time when sea levels were some six feet higher than they are today.
Who is the denier here?
I think Santa is safe at the North Pole unless some Evil Genius Denier Scientist hiding in a volcano laboratory has one of those orbiting microwave thingys pointed at him.
Getting Warm has successfully hijacked this thread, by merely reciting the meme, and making up ‘facts’ to reinforce his blather. This thread is about an emotional fraud being committed by someone whose credibility in the real world has deteriorated to zero. Getting Warm has used this as a springboard, basically condoning the fraud at the same time. If thin ice is involved in any way here, it is the fact that Getting Warm is walking on it. Really, Sir, don’t invite the Ad Hominem, because it is being considered.
Getting Warm says:
“Like saying that the planet has been cooling recently when 9 of the last 10 years are among the hottest.”
Oh, really?
GettingWarm :
In your first post you write:
“Are you denying that the Arctic is experiencing melting that normally happens on geological timescales in just a few decades?”
Neil Jones replied to you: “Quiet simply we don’t know, we only have just over 30 years of accurate records. That’s no time at all in climate science.”
In answer to NJ’s response, you then write:
“Arctic sea ice became a feature of the Arctic by 47 Mya, following a pronounced
decline in atmospheric pCO2 after the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Optimum, and consistently covered at least part of the Arctic Ocean for no less than the last 13–14 million years. Ice was apparently most widespread during the last 2–3 million years, in accordance with Earth’s overall cooler climate.”
You seem to be in confusion here. NJ was responding to your assertion that the arctic is currently experiencing melting that normally happens on geological timescales. According to records made available on Cryosphere today, minimum summer ice cover has decreased from about 5.5m sq. km in 1979 to 3 m sq. km in 2008. Accurate satellite records only go back to 1979, so we cannot make the assertion that this rate of decline is greater than anything in historical records, much less on geological timescales – the data just doesn’t allow that conclusion.
Your above reference to ice cover dating back to 47 Mya is irrelevant at best, or a deliberate attempt to mislead at worst. All we know is that ice has existed in varying extents since 47 Mya. There is no data that exists – or could ever exist – that records ice extents on the scale of decades. It is utterly ridiculous for anyone to claim that the ice cover existed throughout millions of years at an absolutely constant and unvarying extent. It is possible – indeed likely – that ice varied in extent from decade to decade and century by century, sometimes expanding, sometimes shrinking, affected by a myriad of climatic variables we are only just beginning to understand.
If you have citations to peer reviewed literature that asserts that ice extent never varied at all on decadal scales over millions of years, please post them.
GettingWarm, twice as strong warming as the modern one occurred in Arctic in early 20th century.
http://oi56.tinypic.com/vfv70g.jpg
What more, Arctic is just as “warm” as in 1940s.
What are you babbling about?
Why not just buy Santa a snorkel? After all, politicians in the Maldives have used them.
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=maldives+underwater+cabinet+meeting&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbnid=EXo-iKkssvc1KM:&imgrefurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6426091/Maldives-underwater-cabinet-meeting-was-a-sorry-stunt.html&docid=7yv7zSUPuaSJTM&imgurl=http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01509/bookerundersea_1509075c.jpg&w=460&h=288&ei=8ZDWTrXrHcGa8QPex_iRAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=555&vpy=164&dur=1005&hovh=178&hovw=284&tx=158&ty=118&sig=103399365603668714016&page=1&tbnh=151&tbnw=214&start=0&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&biw=1076&bih=680
Well he got you all talking about it. Remember, publicity is the all, the highest goal. Preaching to the choir just delivers it. Simply learn from them just respond with a dismissive equally outrageous retort.
If your asserting such variation is unprecedented, I’ll certainly deny it! The LIA increased all ice extent. Normalization followed. GK
Ha-ha! Look at that pic! Suzuki is slipping Hockey Sticks into Santa’s sleigh. All the kiddies are getting Mannian Hockey Sticks so they know why they must be good eco-mentalists like David Suzuki!
But no coal for the bad kiddies, none at all! Coal is evil, just ask the government-funded part-time activist James Hansen. So Santa shouldn’t be handing out any coal.
But Santa has been handing out coal for ages. Therefore Santa himself is to blame for the climate change that’s destroying his home and workshop. So sod off, Santa! You’re only getting what you deserve. No help from me!
Getting Warm says:
November 30, 2011 at 10:17 am
Welcome to WUWT 🙂
What you will find here: Unlike the BBC or green boards, you will need to support your claims.
The whole universe was created out of nothing! If thats not magic I don’t know what is. Of course Santa exists, but he is a time traveller and goes back to before humans were around, when the earth was in the grips of an ice age. That is why we cant find him at the North Pole now.
If anyone has any lingering doubts that David Suzuki is a shameless propagandist after reading this, they are no better than he is. This is one of the most disgusting brainwashing efforts I’ve seen in a long time.
Is there no depth to which these people will not sink? Now they are attempting to indoctrinate children as young as five to give their pocket money away? These people are pure scum.
Santa can move to the South Pole and enslave the penguins instead of dears and poor Rudolph. Good riddance!
@RH: It is more alarming to me that the CBC continues to promote David S as credible scientist.
————————-
You’re assuming the CBC is a credible broadcaster.
Having lost the argument with the present adult generation they are working on children. Children, the responsibility of the parents and not climate scientists.
He entered dastardly territory by attempting to lower the expectations of children at Christmas time and lying to children about a problem that does not exist. And he cannot bring himself to use the word Christmas leaving the kids to wonder what holiday he talking about. In all fairness he has done no worse than the public school system that seems to want to eliminate Christmas entirely from the minds of children.
The good news is he at least admits to children there is a Santa Clause and that he is a Bavarian.
I have to say this one sounds like it belongs in the “Mountains out of Molehills” category.
Is it in poor taste? Yeah, I’d agree with that. But a travesty? You do understand you risk sounding like some of the over top followers of Real Climate when you go off on something like this, don’t you?
Suzuki has become a truly pathetic excuse for an environmentalist. a real scumbag, plumbing new depths of [snip] and has reduced global warming fear mongering to new levels of desperation, deception and lies.
My father in law is a retired physicist who worked in the same building as a young David Suzuki nearly 50 years ago. My father in law is very diplomatic so when he said Suzuki’s coworkers found Suzuki’s work ‘odd’ , he actually meant it was poor. By nature scientists are basically introverted so whenever the CBC came around looking for an answer to a science question it was a young Suzuki who jumped at the chance to be in front of the camera and the others were happy he did . When the original host of ‘Quirks and Quarks’ left, the CBC looked around for a new host and decided the young fellow at the federal science building would be a good fit. The rest is history.
He wasn’t much of a scientist back then and he’s not much of a scientist now. If David Suzuki is really a scientist , the Capt. Highliner is a real captain and North Korea is a Democratic Republic.
Getting Warm says:
November 30, 2011 at 11:36 am
James Sexton and Neil Jones,
First you say that there is only 30 years of data and that isn’t enough.
Then you say that there has been no real melting in five years and that proves the melting is bunk.
If you look at that graph you will see a dark band. That is two standard deviations – a huge difference from the recent record.
Down below it shows how 2011 is tied with the record for greatest melt.
Like saying that the planet has been cooling recently when 9 of the last 10 years are among the hottest.
Do you know that facts are different from opinions?
========================================================
Yes, but now I’m wondering if you do. Let me repeat myself for clarity.
This ice hasn’t diminished since 2007. This isn’t an opinion, this is fact. The fact that it did significantly diminish for a couple of decades prior put to rest one of the biggest lies told by the alarmist crowd…….. Specifically that the ice loss would cause a death spiral and we were on the brink of a tipping point. We’ve had, using the 79-2000 average, nearly a 50% reduction in ice extent during the minimum and yet, this has been the earth’s temp response……http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend
Only in the mind of an alarmist could a general decline in temps for over a decade, be seen as an increase in temps. And, while some interpretations of the temps are subjective, the data as a whole is generally accepted as factual observations. And only in the mind of an alarmist could have the same quantity of a prior year mean that we’re losing ice. When x=y then, y is not less than x. It’s really not that complicated. Conversely, (relating to global temps) When t₁ is greater than t₂ then we can say t₂ is cooler than t₁
I didn’t say anything proved anything as bunk, but you should read some of the other comments to try and understand what I meant when I stated “melt” wasn’t the proper word. Ice loss can occur in a number of ways. Melting, being only one of them. Do try and keep up.
Kindest regards,
James
Getting Warm says:
November 30, 2011 at 10:17 am
says:
“Are you denying that the Arctic is is experiencing some of the most extreme warming, as predicted by IPCC?”
No exceptional Arctic temperatures shown here.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
We don’t deny the alleged “extreme warming”, we are just skeptical of the assertion. And as the continuing revelations of climate science chicanery multiply, we become more skeptical.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
“Last time the Arctic was ice free was maybe 125,000 years ago during a natural burst of CO2.”
You might want to read this before making dubious claims.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/30/new-peer-reviewed-paper-says-there-appear-to-have-been-periods-of-ice-free-summers-in-the-central-arctic-ocean/
The “natural burst of CO2” attribution is wildly speculative and shows your bias.
Somebody has to get Suzuki on some meds. He needs help!
I’m all for the elimination of Santa. Billions of dollars flows to external coffers (China) every Christmas. Mostly for junk put away in storage bins. This extravagance used to fuel our economy. Now it only increases our debt. Explaining to our children that we have been lying to them destroys a sacred trust. Burn the pagan Santa, for everyone’s benefit. GK
Getting Warm says:
Are you denying that the Arctic is experiencing melting that normally happens on geological timescales in just a few decades?
Are you denying that the Arctic is is experiencing some of the most extreme warming, as predicted by IPCC?
There is no solid empirical evidence supporting the theory that human-induced CO2 is warming the planet — a least, not to any measureable degree and certainly not in any harmful way. The incessant alarmism about CO2-inflicted runaway global warming is the product of cleverly contrived computer models (and the hyperactive imagination of those who create them), not on any hard observational evidence.
The warming scare is largely the invention of climate researchers who have decided to substitute computer modeling for real-world scientific research. Their approach to science (I use the term loosely) is all backwards: they begin with a pre-ordained conclusion — that man is warming the earth — and then set out to prove their conclusion through sundry contortions and manipulations of climate models. They aim only at confirmation, not falsification.
As combusion research scientist Dr. Martin Hertzberg observes: “In comparison to water in all of its forms, the effect of the carbon dioxide increase over the last century on the temperature of the earth is about as significant as a few farts in a hurricane!”