Polar opposites

I'll get back to "Rebooting America" shortly... meanwhile, this juxtaposition was simply too good to ignore:

From the New York Times:

The drastic melting of Arctic sea ice has finally ended for the year, scientists announced Wednesday, but not before demolishing the previous record — and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region....
When satellite tracking began in the late 1970s, sea ice at its lowest point in the summer typically covered about half the Arctic Ocean, but it has been declining in fits and starts over the decades.  

Oh, noes!  Call the Goreacle!  Only he will know how to save us from the effects of our carbon corruption!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, and hardly reported at all, yet another record is set:

Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year).
National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on its website last month claiming, “Ten years ago, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island disintegrated and melted in the waters off Antarctica. Two other massive ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula had suffered similar fates a few years before. The events became poster children for the effects of global warming. … There’s no question that unusually warm air triggered the final demise of these huge chunks of ice.”
NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012.

Of course they did... that data point doesn't fit the picture they want to paint.  Given these diametrically opposed records being set at opposite ends of the Earth, I offer a humble theory that fits the facts at least as well as those put forward by man-made warming alarmists: the Earth is simply reaching middle age, and suffering from weight redistribution just like all the rest of us...