Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Must be Christmas, time for the traditional MSM stories about climate change melting Santa’s home in the Arctic.

Climate change in Lapland: The impact of global warming in the land of Santa Claus Environmental changes in the far north are having disastrous effects on the region’s indigenous people and tourism industry Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent Saturday 23 December 2017 16:24 GMT Lapland occupies a happy space in the popular imagination as a winter wonderland, occupied by reindeer, elves and Father Christmas. The real life Lapland, however, is increasingly facing up to the grim reality of global warming. Research has revealed the disproportionate impact of climate change in the Arctic, where temperatures are currently rising at double the rate of the global average. The far north is bearing the brunt of global warming, and, as much of Lapland’s population relies on its polar climate for their livelihoods, the effects are starting to be felt. …

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-lapland-santa-claus-father-christmas-reindeer-global-warming-a8113041.html

The Irish Times is worried about the impact of melting snow on sled transport;

Global warming puts Santa’s delivery system at risk John FitzGerald: Have Eircodes made Santa’s job easier? And other bah humbug observations Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 06:00 It is proving extremely difficult in the aviation sector to find technological solutions to greenhouse gas emissions that influence climate change. As a result, flying may be the last sector staying with fossil fuels. However, Christmas each year tests an alternative approach. The sleigh driven by Santa Claus is powered by nine reindeer. Like cows, reindeer are ruminants: when they digest grass and lichen, they emit methane gas. Unfortunately this is a very powerful greenhouse gas. On the face of it, this would appear to be a black mark against reindeer-powered sleighs. However, we should also consider how much greenhouse gas is emitted per tonne of payload per kilometre travelled, and how that might compare with alternative modes of travel. Given that the sleigh is believed to traverse the entire globe over the course of just one night, the number of kilometres travelled is very high. … But maybe the best Christmas gift of all for today’s and tomorrow’s children could be effective action to tackle climate change through implementing the Paris Agreement. May all our North Pole Christmases be white. Happy Christmas!

Read more: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/global-warming-puts-santa-s-delivery-system-at-risk-1.3334240

Not to be outdone, the Canadian Government thinks Santa will have to move to Antarctica because all the snow is melting.

Santa is moving to the South Pole What? Thanks to rising global temperatures, rapidly melting Arctic ice and growing human operations in the North, Santa Claus has signed an agreement with the International community to relocate his village next year to operate in an exclusive zone in the South Pole. So What? Santa’s relocation agreement marks the first time that the international community agrees on a common legal definition of climate change that includes refugees as corporations, as well as individuals. This deal is expected to lead to the deployment of a global climate change refugee visa system that in the near future could help to more easily relocate individuals and corporations facing the impacts of climate change. …

Read more: http://www.horizons.gc.ca/en/content/santa-is-moving-to-the-south-pole

For once its not all misery. Grand Canyon News finds hope in Christmas, with a theory that believing in Santa may help kids develop the imagination to solve climate change.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus, and he’s calling you GRAND CANYON — Think there’s almost a conspiracy out there to squelch your child’s belief in Santa Claus? Technology can help you fight back. For years the big guy in red has had to contend with aggressive pushback from the PC crowd who apparently wish he’d just pack up his sleigh and stay home in the North Pole. Department stores were pressured to nix their Santa stand-ins. Schools changed their calendars to say “winter holidays” instead of Christmas. And let’s not even talk about the damage done to his image by Billy Bob Thornton’s “Bad Santa” movies. Santa, being Santa, could keep right on ho-ho-hoing when lesser immortals would’ve sicked their elves on them. But you? Clearly, just quoting pro-Santa experts like Professor Jacqueline Woolley, chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at Austin, wasn’t going to cut it. “Believing in impossible beings such as Santa Claus may exercise children’s counterfactual reasoning skills,” she’s written. “The kind of thinking involved in imagining how nine reindeer could fly through the sky carrying a heavy sleigh may well be the same kind of thinking required for imagining a solution to global warming or a way to cure a disease.” …

Read more: https://www.grandcanyonnews.com/news/2017/dec/19/yes-virginia-there-really-santa-claus-and-hes-call/

Despite these stories, this year’s effort to weave Santa into the Global Warming myth seems somehow more subdued than previous years. Perhaps heavy snowfall in the North is making it more difficult to believe in the climate ice melt fairy.

Merry Christmas from Australia.

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