The Media and the Antarctica

A giant iceberg, covering an area of 5 800 km2, has freed itself from the Antarctica between 10 – 12 July 2017. Similar observations were made in 1995 and 2002.

According to the New York Times, this news confirms the prediction of the US researcher John H. Mercer, published in Nature in 1978: the North Pole (the ice sheet) is going to disappear because the climate is getting warmer. A number of media have set off the alarm bell after President Trump withdrew his country from the Paris Climate Agreement.

What the New York Times is not saying, is that this event is nothing extraordinary:
• in 1956 an iceberg six times the dimensions of this one was observed breaking off from the Antarctica; and
• in 1927 another iceberg four times the volume did the same thing.
We do not have the data for the previous centuries.

Furthermore, President Trump has withdrawn his country from the Paris Agreement for the sole reason that he is opposed to the financial system of the Coal Stockmarket [1]. Thus, his decision has nothing to do with the environment. David Blood (a former director of the investment bank, Goldman Sachs) and Al Gore (the former US Vice-President) set up the coal stockmarket. Barack Obama (who would be the future US President) drafted its by-laws.