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5000 YEARS OF SNOWMOBILES

Reuters reports

Global warming has made life more dangerous for Inuit in the Arctic as they increasingly fall to their deaths through thinning ice sheets while hunting seals and polar bears.

Delegates at a climate change conference in Belize said today that many Inuit had died in recent years because their snowmobiles and sleds crash through the ice during hunts.

“My people have been hunting on the ice for 5000 years but now you risk death around every turn,” said Nicodemus Illauq, from the Inuit town of Clyde River in Canada said at the conference in Central America.

Earlier snowmobiles - the 3000BC models - were evidently lighter. Nice that global warming is making life safer for polar bears.

Posted by Tim B. on 05/30/2007 at 11:32 AM
  1. As a child, I used to read my father’s Boy Scout handbook, published in the 1930s or so.  It had a section in it on winter camping, which included very specific guidance on what thickness of ice was safe. 

    Too bad it’s long gone, as I’d send a photocopy of that section to the Inuits, highlighting the part that said “Know before you go.”

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 05 30 at 11:54 AM • permalink

  2. My guess is many Inuit died in past years, as well as recent, as a result of crashing through the ice.  I don’t suppose there were any statistics presented that showed a rise in those types of deaths that weren’t due to the relative accessibility of snowmobiles today as opposed to former times or irrefutatble scientific evidence showing a definite rise in climate in the region that directly correlates with the number of accidents?  Or is that hoping too much?

    Posted by EmilyJones on 2007 05 30 at 11:59 AM • permalink

  3. So, the Inuit have written records on the number of people who fell through the ice over the past five thousand years?  Man, you learn something every day. 

    A winter doesn’t go by up here without some clown drowning as a result of crashing through thin ice on a snowmobile.  The AGW enthusiasts probably think it’s another sign of gerbil worming.  We troglodytes, on the other hand, tend to view the accidents as the result of a combination of inexperience, alcohol, arrogance, and sheer stupidity.  What do we know, though?  We’re not Gorons.

    Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 05 30 at 12:10 PM • permalink

  4. I have two guesses:

    (1)  The Inuit have always gotten into trouble on thin ice.

    (2)  They used to be a lot better at telling when the ice was getting thin.  I’m guessing its a lot harder to tell the condition of the ice when you are ripping along on a snowmobile than when you are walking or sledding.

    Posted by R C Dean on 2007 05 30 at 12:10 PM • permalink

  5. Blue State - that’s another good point, my point being that this “goron” (brilliant!) probably didn’t even bother to present any stats from written records that they DO have, let alone going back centuries to make any case other than screeching “global warming!” and retreat from the soap box to the thunder of unthinking applause.

    Posted by EmilyJones on 2007 05 30 at 12:16 PM • permalink

  6. How many words do the Eskimos have for “bullshit”?

    Posted by Dave S. on 2007 05 30 at 12:26 PM • permalink

  7. So, how’s the ice down in Belize?

    Posted by Hucbald on 2007 05 30 at 12:34 PM • permalink

  8. “Global warming has made life more dangerous for Inuit in the Arctic…”

    Bullshit.

    “Health conditions for Canadian Natives have improved dramatically in the past half a century, but mortality rates are still higher in the north than for Canada as a whole, and life expectancy is lower. For example, life expectancy among Inuit doubled between the early 1940s and the 1980s, when it reached 66 years. Life expectancy has continued to improve…”

    Reuters lies

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 05 30 at 12:51 PM • permalink

  9. An Inuit named Nicodemus?  Doesn’t sound very authentic to me.  The Christianists must have gotten to them.  Alert Andrew Sullivan’s Halo!

    http://www.leninstomb.org/halo

    Posted by chunt31854 on 2007 05 30 at 01:02 PM • permalink

  10. Yes, but were they hybrid snowmobiles??

    Posted by Tex Lovera on 2007 05 30 at 01:05 PM • permalink

  11. Complete crap. My highly sophisticated investigation of eskimos - including combined studies in history, ethnology, and native etymology - reveals that these folk have been falling through the ice for millenia. In fact, the very name originated as a reference to the perils of moving about on the ice floes of polar seas.

    Early western explorer: “What happened to the chief?”

    Native: “Him chase polar bear on ice over water. Ice break. Him fall inuit.”

    Case closed.

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 30 at 01:16 PM • permalink

  12. Paco, we’ll have Nunevat.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2007 05 30 at 01:29 PM • permalink

  13. They should shift over to solar powered snowmobiles.  Might be a bit harder to use in the winter, but if it saves one polar bear, it’s worth it.  Oh, wait, they use them to hunt polar bears?  So is goebbels whoremongering hurting polar bears or helping them?  Me confused.  This whole AGW thing is going to drive me to drink.

    Posted by rbj1 on 2007 05 30 at 01:32 PM • permalink

  14. #12: Paco, we’ll have Nunevat.

    Sorry, man. Hey: De Beers on me.

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 30 at 01:49 PM • permalink

  15. Boy, can you imagine the complaints about gorbal worming of the Neanderthals!—if there were any left to complain?

    Paco, I’ll have my De Beers over ice, thank you, if it won’t gross out the crawlers too much.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 05 30 at 02:00 PM • permalink

  16. More items on global warmy cooliness from Don Surber.

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 30 at 02:01 PM • permalink

  17. Hmmm.  A 500 (roughly) pound snowmobile + a 160 (roughly) pound man versus a 25-40 pound dogsled + that same man (not counting the weight of rifle, ammo, food, etc).  Wonder which one is more dangerous on thin ice?  Or even thicker ice?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 05 30 at 02:42 PM • permalink

  18. An inconvenient truth.Heavily laden snowmobiles driven over thin ice is a dangerous activity..Who da thunk it.

    Posted by greene on 2007 05 30 at 03:04 PM • permalink

  19. RebeccaH:  Further, sled dogs hate and fear water, and they can hear and smell it quite well; all those dogs out front save your bacon on a regular basis.

    Posted by buzz harsher on 2007 05 30 at 03:08 PM • permalink

  20. “Reuters reports:”

    Nah, what they do is spew a continual flood of lying leftist propaganda, and they’ve been lying so much and for so long that their lies are now pathological in nature.

    You can tell that’s true because they can’t even be bothered coming up with lies that aren’t easily exposed and disproven.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 05 30 at 03:18 PM • permalink

  21. Early snowmobiles were made of birchbark and twine.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2007 05 30 at 03:32 PM • permalink

  22. Come on huh!

    Yukon can’t go on like this, just for the Halifax.

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 05 30 at 03:47 PM • permalink

  23. I can’t comment unless the wife gives the OK; guess Alaska.

    Posted by Tex Lovera on 2007 05 30 at 03:59 PM • permalink

  24. Messed up. So Saskatchewan that off. Manitoba, not to do that Ontario I learn all the names .

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 05 30 at 04:08 PM • permalink

  25. HEY! Knock it off, I’m leaving for a while, anyway. All you people come igloo, Jesus.

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 05 30 at 04:13 PM • permalink

  26. OT. Modern day mohammad: ‘Prophet’ guilty of sex offences against girl.

    Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 30 at 04:18 PM • permalink

  27. #18. Heavily laden snowmobiles driven over thin ice is a dangerous activity..

    ...especially if returning from the pub. Are snowmobile drivers subjected to RBT’s ?

    Posted by JAFA on 2007 05 30 at 05:02 PM • permalink

  28. This is a classic warming feedback. Loss of ice endangers bears, hunters killed by loss of ice saves bears. This is why predictions made with models is so tricky.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 05 30 at 05:36 PM • permalink

  29. The only prediction I’d guess is safe is that any model I proposition will turn out negative.  100% scientific consnesus right there for ya!

    I read this and went - does anyone seriously believe this?  Then I sighed - of course they do, it has been reported in the news as a fact.  I love the line:

    “Everyone knows someone who has fallen through ice”.

    Yeah, apparently word gets around up there on the snow pretty good these days - talk about your modern improvements!

    Bolt has an interesting article linked on the debate being frozen out by lefty propagandists.  Makes for very interesting reading.

    Why do the alarmists who don’t follow the scientific consensus constantly get away with it?  Me thinks we need to put detective paco onto the case.

    Posted by peter m on 2007 05 30 at 06:16 PM • permalink

  30. Many people around here head out on the ice each year, and many go through it each year in trucks and snopwmobiles, but rarely on foot.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 05 30 at 06:25 PM • permalink

  31. #28…

    Zactly my thought.  Huffing gasoline messes with the models too.

    Posted by Margrave on 2007 05 30 at 06:34 PM • permalink

  32. #3 Gorons…you mean this is what we’re in for, Blue?

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 05 30 at 06:50 PM • permalink

  33. I have to put in this marvelous link to a Swedish sled originally posted by J M Heinrichs.

    Who would guess that the Swedes have world-class GAIA warming, whale killing machines?  Take one of these puppies out and give the whales a taste of 105mm HEAT.  Whale mince for dinner.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 05 30 at 06:53 PM • permalink

  34. I think I know the reason they are falling through the ice more frequently.

    I was once in Winisk on the shores of Hudson Bay. An indian village, Cree indians from memory. It’s one of those places that would have snow on the ground 9 or 10 months of the year.

    Anyway, I was there in the middle of summer, and one of my enduring memories of the place is people driving around the snow-free ground on snowmobiles. The place is basically a dirt road about a hundred meters long with houses along it and a store at one end. People were driving their snowmobiles along the dirt to go less than a 100 meters to the store.

    So there you have it. They are falling through the ice more often, because they have become too friggin lazy to walk. It’s the Inuit equivalent of the LA syndrome - drive everywhere.

    Posted by phil_b on 2007 05 30 at 07:01 PM • permalink

  35. I know lots of people who have fallen through the ice too, some many times. A lot of them like to mix ice-fishing for beer money with drinking of said beer in a cylce then sometimes ends badly.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 05 30 at 07:04 PM • permalink

  36. Id probably compare it to this case in Oz. They have become in some ways as disrespectful of the hazards as they accuse whitefellas of being.
    Be prepared.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 05 30 at 07:31 PM • permalink

  37. They don’t even get the irony, I guess.  Has everyone gone mad?

    Posted by ann j on 2007 05 30 at 07:40 PM • permalink

  38. I seem to recall that native peoples of the great white north have serious problems with demon rum. Could this be a factor in snowmobile accidents? I might also suggest that social workers involved with the Inuit keep on the lookout for an illegal still being run by a swarthy gentleman wearing a fedora….

    Posted by greene on 2007 05 30 at 07:54 PM • permalink

  39. do you think I could get an article in Reuters about say Saudi oil sheiks complaining their Rolls Royce Phantoms are over heating more often in the desert because of global warming? Might be worth a shot. Go for a line of “global warming so bad even the Oil Sheiks are complaining”

    Posted by the nailgun on 2007 05 30 at 08:15 PM • permalink

  40. Odd there’s no mention of how many icedivers had been chugging glycol before their plunge- I believe the Eskimos rather enjoy nudging the turps, and it’s hard enough keeping a car on a marked, solid roadway when blotto- I’d think keeping a snowmobile upright, let alone on the intended direction when suitably refreshed would be harder than maintaining eye contact with Sabrina.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 08:24 PM • permalink

  41. #36

    Odd that the news report on the two deaths had no correlation with the evidence found at the scene.  i.e. where the bodies were discovered, difference between make of vehicle (Landrover Ute, not Landcruiser)etc.

    Posted by deadparrot on 2007 05 30 at 08:45 PM • permalink

  42. #32 Dminor - perfect!  :D

    They even have Algor’s High Priest of Gaia outfit designed, I see.  It’s only a matter of time before he shows up at one of his tedious dog-and-pony shows dressed EXACTLY like that.

    Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 05 30 at 09:07 PM • permalink

  43. My bad.

    Seems there was another example of two fellas going out in the dying in the outback in 2005.

    Posted by deadparrot on 2007 05 30 at 09:14 PM • permalink

  44. I fall through the ice everytime someone pollutes my whisky with ice - I just dive right in to get to the water of life!  And I am not even an inuit

    Posted by missred on 2007 05 30 at 09:52 PM • permalink

  45. The problem is that with the all the new medical equipment and machines that we have these days (generally made out of petroleum based products) we are able to keep people alive longer.  Therefore it would be sensible to deduce that there are more inuit today than there were 5000 years ago.

    Maybe snow mobiles are the new plague - natural carbon emitting population control!!!

    If less of them used snow mobiles and went back to the old dog sled then there would apparently be less global warming.

    Hrmmmm the theory of natural selection comes to mind!!!!!

    Posted by Killaette on 2007 05 30 at 11:05 PM • permalink

  46. Um, Mr. Inuit guy, when you’re not one with Gaia on your buzzy snowmobile, and you go somewhere in your truck and there’s not place to plug in your block heater, what do you do?  You leave the engine running, that’s what. 

    It’s very hard to imagine life there without our little friend the hydrocarbon.

    Posted by Matt in Denver on 2007 05 31 at 12:00 AM • permalink

  47. Goreble’s next movie: “No, No, Nanook” starring Charlie Sheen and Rosie O’Donnell as “The Orca”...

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 31 at 01:03 AM • permalink

  48. I know I’m probably being a cynic but why do I suspect that the thin-ice complaint will soon be followed by a request for someone else’s money to help off-set the “new” problem?

    Posted by Winger on 2007 05 31 at 11:25 AM • permalink

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