It’s cherished tradition to regale our children with stories of Santa and his elves busily crafting gifts in their North Pole workshop. For 364 days of the year they strive to embody all that is best in humanity and then deliver it magically on Christmas Day.
They say no good deed goes unrequited and humanity through a combination of self-indulgence and short-sightedness has just repaid Santa’s good works by serving him with an eviction notice.
Santa’s days are numbered and if his work is to continue, it will have to be from a new address.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, by the summer of 2040, the North Pole will be filled, not with ice, but with open water.
For Santa there may be time to relocate, but evolution doesn’t work fast enough to prepare the pole’s other icebound inhabitants.
As the ice dwindles, animals like the polar bear will likely follow the path of the dodo bird, disappearing from the planet entirely.
Sending Santa and his neighbors to Davy Jones’ Locker is bad enough in and of itself, but it’s not the end of the story. It’s the beginning. Ice isn’t just melting in the Antarctic. It’s melting everywhere.
In Canada, newly created icebergs are becoming so large they’re being detected by earthquake monitors. The most recent chunk of ice to break free had an area greater than 10,000 football fields.
That pales in comparison to what is happening in the arctic. In 2000, the Ross Ice Shelf calved an iceberg 186 miles long and 23 miles wide, roughly the size of the state of Connecticut. Smaller city sized icebergs are becoming common occurrences.
In Greenland, new islands called nunataks (“lonely mountains”) are being discovered with regularity as retreating glaciers uncover pieces of land that for ages have been buried in icy solitude.
In Kenya, the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro have decreased by 80 percent over the past 35 years and as a result the rivers they once feed are drying up.
Not only is melting definitely occurring, it’s accelerating. In 1996, it’s estimated that 22 cubic miles of Greenland’s ice sheet melted. By 2005, the rate had increased to 54 cubic miles of ice loss.
Antarctica is losing ice as well at a rate of about 36 cubic miles per year (one cubic mile is equivalent to 1,101,117,140,000 gallons).
What will happen if the ice caps of Greenland melt entirely? There is enough water in Greenland’s glaciers to elevate sea levels by 23 feet worldwide. Picture New Orleans after Katrina, but duplicate the results for every coastal city on the planet.
With over 50 percent of the U.S. population residing in coastal counties, roughly 150 million refugees would be forced to relocate in America alone.
Santa won’t be the only one driving up property prices while looking for a new home.
If this scenario sounds bad, keep in mind that melting ice is just one aspect of global warming.
Warmer temperatures will alter weather patterns, force shifts in agriculture, and allow pests and diseases from the tropics to migrate northward.
In 30 years you’ll likely be swatting Ecuadorian mosquitoes, buying bread imported from Canada, and trying to figure out how the hell you managed to step in a pile of reindeer poop.

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