Global Warming: An interesting story from Reuters, claiming that a new report shows summertime Arctic ice disappearing due to global warming:

The three-year international study indicated that ice around the North Pole had shrunk by 7.4 percent in the past 25 years with a record small summer coverage in September 2002.

Now this is, overall, a so-what claim. If the world is warming, as science indicates, obviously it will melt some ice. The surprise is that the story gives roughly equal treatment to the benefits of climate change:

"This will make it easier to explore for oil, it could open the Northern Sea Route (between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans)," he said of the report, dubbed the Arctic Ice Cover Simulation Experiment.

Moscow and Norway reckon the Barents Sea could be a promising new area for oil and gas. The Northern Sea passage could save shippers about 10 days on a trip from Japan to Europe compared to traveling through the Suez Canal.

There's a refreshing change from downright speculation on the sorry fate of some rare strain of mold in the face of environmental holocaust.