For only the second time in recorded history, the fabled Northwest Passage is open and clear of ice - check out the map at Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis. (I refer, of course, to the deep-water Parry Channel, between the southern part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the Queen Elizabeth Islands to their north.)
There are some very interesting accounts (here, here and on pages 18-22 here) of the first commercial testing of shipping through the Northwest Passage - back in 1969, when the U.S.S. Manhattan, an icebreaking oiltanker, made the trip, though it had to abandon its summer attack on the McClure Strait at the end of the Parry Channel, since it was fast with ice 100 feet thick where now there is open water!
I tend to accept the evidence for a warming climate, linked to man's activities - though of course, as sensible folk would, I hope that this is wrong, still one mustn't stick one's head in the sand.
In any case, should Western Australia run out of water, get insupportably hot, and otherwise become uncomfortable, my initial plan is to return to Tasmania, but my long-term plan is to migrate to northern Canada: by my calculations, it should be balmy by the time I get to retirement. ;-)
