An Inconvenient Antarctic Ice Increase
As conservatives have been saying all along, “climate change” is cyclical and not just about anthropogenic emissions.
In the 1970s, climate alarmists began predicting another ice age. By the 1990s, they had reversed course, predicting that global warming would melt the ice caps by [fill in the year]. Then they changed the branding to “climate change” to accommodate whatever Chicken Little prophecy they trotted out. It soon became obvious that there was nothing that couldn’t be blamed on so-called “climate change.”
Well, the news this week is that the ice cap at the South Pole has been growing for three years.
Regarding the North Pole, in 2009, Al Gore proclaimed, “Some of the models suggest to Dr. [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.” Maslowski, a professor of oceanography at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, disputed Gore’s characterization at the time, saying, “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” Gore’s team claimed it was a “ballpark figure” from a conversation he had with Maslowski.
Also in 2009, then-Senator John Kerry issued a similar warning regarding polar ice: “Scientists tell us we have a 10-year window — if even that — before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible.”
Fast-forward to 2021, and Reuters “fact-checked” Gore’s 2009 comment (more specifically, conservative social media posts pointing to Gore’s remarks) by splitting hairs, saying he didn’t “predict” melting ice caps but did misrepresent the data.
Gore famously made similar predictions, however. “In the next 50 to 70 years in summertime [the Arctic ice cap] will be completely gone,” claimed his “An Inconvenient Truth” “documentary” in 2006. A year later, in his acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize, Gore said, “One study estimated that [the ice cap] could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as seven years.”
Here we are in 2025, and the New York Post reports, “A study published in Science China Earth Sciences revealed that between 2021 and 2023, the [Antarctic Ice Sheet] gained mass at a rate of 108 gigatons per year — a remarkable reversal from the rapid loss seen in previous years.”
The gain doesn’t equal or reverse the 142 gigaton annual loss over the prior decade, but it’s something. It’s also the Antarctic, not the Arctic, as Gore technically predicted.
Yet the American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Pielke Jr. writes, also at the Post, on a separate climate study of the North Pole, which found, “The loss of Arctic sea ice cover has undergone a pronounced slowdown over the past two decades, across all months of the year.” Moreover, Pielke paraphrases, “They suggest that the ‘pause’ in Arctic sea ice decline could persist for several more decades.”
Two things.
First, these studies don’t utterly disprove that climate change is happening. They do, however, show that it’s not a straight line and it’s unpredictable. Almost hilariously, a local Fox affiliate reported this gem: “Scientists warn, however, that this shift doesn’t mean the climate crisis is over. The gains were linked to unusual precipitation patterns, which may be temporary.”
Yeah, that’s the point! Conservatives have long said that the climate is cyclical and dependent on many factors entirely outside human control. This isn’t a permanent, one-way trend dependent on subjecting ourselves to top-down government control of everything from appliances to vehicles.
That brings me to the second point: Neither does it represent success for the ecofascists. They wouldn’t claim it anyway. You’ll never hear them say, Great job, everyone! We’ve succeeded, and the planet is on a safe course now. (You’ll also never hear them admit they were wrong.) No, it’s never enough for them because the goal is not climate balance but communism. They go right on smacking the gong to demand government control of everything we do.
It’s also noteworthy that “conservative” and “conservation” share etymology. The first seeks to preserve Liberty and cultural traditions; the latter endeavors to steward God’s creation. Pointing out that the climate alarmists are stunningly wrong doesn’t (or shouldn’t) mean conservatives want to destroy the planet with irresponsible behavior.
Postscript: If you want some entertainment, walk down memory lane with lists of bogus climate predictions here, here, and here.
