Impassable Northwest Passage Open For First Time In History

An anonymous reader writes "The Northwest Passage, a normally ice-locked shortcut between Europe and Asia, is now passable for the first time in recorded history reports the European Space Agency. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said in the article: 'We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme.'"

Comments

Won't be long

[Dachannien]

I'm sure the Northwest Passage Cruise Line vacation scam spams will begin soon.

Re:Won't be long

[Dachannien]

I thought Russia owned the whole damn thing.

Re:Won't be long

[Carewolf]

Of course he disagrees. The Northwest Passage is danish sovereignty. The Canadians just doesn't know how to read maps.

Time to buy

[downix]

that prime waterfront property in Kansas....

Re:Time to buy

[RockDoctor]

There is prime waterfront property to buy on the north shore of Canada, Alaska, and Russia. In fact, I predict the melting of the artic ice will lead to a resource gold rush by the nations bordering the artic

Not in any great hurry ; in theory, the opening of the Arctic Ocean could make development and/ or extraction of minerals somewhat cheaper in the immediate coastal regions. But once you're more than a few tens of miles from the coast, then you're going to find that the costs of building rail lines or pipelines (depending on if you're talking about minerals or oil) gets up to the level where it's just as cheap in the long run to go overland with rail. And that's not going to be a quick option. Then again, building port facilities isn't quick either, particularly if you've got no port to bring the building materials for building your port.

Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

What could cause this?

Re:Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

IRAQ!

Re:Huh.

[Foobar of Borg]

IRAQ!

Of course. Where else do you think Saddam Hussein hid the Weapons of Mass Destruction? He had to hide them in the artic, where we would least expect them. He was fiendishly clever, that Saddam.

Re:Huh.

[OriginalArlen]

Hey, why not ask a climatologist (or six)? That's an excellent paper. If you've heard the "skeptic" canard along the lines of "but the temperature in teh historical proxy records starts rising before the CO2 starts to increase" -- which is completely correct - please take the trouble to read and understand the description of the albedo-flip feedback cycle. That's right, this means that things are much worse than the IPCC thinks.

No, wait, he's a crank. He works for that hotbed of liberal tree-huggers, NASA!

Here's the National Snow and Ice Data Center's latest map of Arctic sea-ice extent (w/e 10th September 2007), showing the average extent from 1980-2000 at this time of year. (context and the latest data will be here tomorrow..) This will be updating tomorrow (Monday) afternoon with the latest week's data. Normally sea-ice reaches it's minimum extent at the end of September, so we're not at the bottom of the 2007 season yet.

Final one for the depressingly high number of skeptic loonies and ignoramuses who always come out of the wordwork on these stories: are you really saying that George Bush and Arnold Schwartzenegger are both suckers who have fallen for bad silence peddled by some sort of environmentalist illuminati? really? Cos even Dubya has now officially accepted the basic, uncontroversial amongst actual scientists, IPCC-version models are accurate (and this is anthropogenic warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions). You did know that didn't you?

What do you know, that Dubya doesn't?

Roald Amundsen

[imaginaryelf]

The Northwest passage was first traversed in 1903 by that famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. This was no small feat given the technology available at the turn of the century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a real boon to nautical industries like shipping and such. There just aren't that many ways around continents. Having an extra option is great.

 
Plus, those big ships'll have a shorter route on which to belch their nasty so-called "greenhouse gasses" (and will, therefore, not pollute as much!); this could be the best thing to happen to the environment in 30 years!!

OSS in trouble

[Tablizer]

Where is Linux gonna get a new mascot when their home is gone?

-1 wrong pole

Re:Poorly worded

[MosesJones]

Seriously, you have noticed that the world isn't flat haven't you? When planes fly they go north because that creates the shortest route (the grand circle) hence the reason that when flying to Asia the planes often go from Europe straight over the north pole. In terms of mileage this is a massive change (think multiples not percentages) over the existing routes and is the reason why the EU and US are already pushing for it to be an international (rather than Canadian) trade route.

So yes it looks similar on Google maps, but it looks completely different on Google Earth.

Maybe...

[Eric Damron]

Maybe it a troll because there is no -1 "Ignorant enough to kill us all" moderation available?

Re:A non-passable passage?

[PopeJM]

If its never been passable before why was it called a passage? The early European explorers and their governments knew the importance of being the first one to find a Northwest passage if one existed. They didn't know for sure if one did exist. It's like talking about a Western route to the Indies when there isn't a direct path from Europe.

Sovreignity rights

[Aeron65432]

Let the battle begin......Canada has already asserted complete rights to the passage, Russia and the United States want it to be international waters. It matters because this passage is incredibly lucrative for the months of the year it's open.

Re:Sovreignity rights

[quacking duck]

It has the potential to be incredibly lucrative, yes.

Most of the passage indisputably passes between islands all internationally recognized as Canadian. Territorial waters is defined as 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the land, and a quick check using Google Earth shows most of these islands are less than 44 km apart at their closest points. Once you're in the Beaufort Sea, then yeah you're in international waters.

Unfortunately the US and European countries don't have many comparably close-lying islands for comparison, but it would be like claiming the Shelikof Strait between Alaska and Kodiak Island were international waters.

The US and Europe want the passage "international" for the convenience and cost savings, which is understandable. But their wanting to make it international also means they want to strip Canada of its obligation to protect its environment--witness the callous disregard of the effects of dumping bilge oil/water just last year.

Obviously, Canada currently is in no position to enforce its sovereignty in the north due to its underfunded military, but that is a separate issue. The Arctic and Antarctic areas are one of the last areas on earth relatively unspoiled by human contamination, and it disgusts me that those largely responsible for screwing up the rest of the world, now want to finish the job.

Re:Arctic minimum, antarctic maximum

[DrSkwid]

That posting is the interesting, I useful fact to carry around.
I'm still a global warming sceptic. I'm all for reducing carbon emissions and the like. I'm just not totally convinved the weather patterns and carbon emissions are intertwined as some of the figures look.

Correlation is not causation.

Years of Study: ~30

[WED Fan]

Well, considering the years of study of the Northwest Passage are in the 30's, I'm sure someone will get a little hyperbolic with their rhetoric.

Re:Poorly worded

[gEvil (beta)]

So yes it looks similar on Google maps, but it looks completely different on Google Earth.

Try Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion map for an interesting view of the world...

Re:Misleading info on Polar Bears

[BearRanger]

This is so wrong I don't know where to begin.

Polar bears have historically required pack ice to breed and hunt. As the ice melts more and more bears drown. Their numbers are in decline. Officially they're listed as vulnerable, but I believe later this year that status will be downgraded to endangered. Hopefully they'll be able to adapt their behavior to the new, warmer conditions of the arctic. But I wouldn't expect that.

There's plenty of scientific research on this subject. Granted, Wikipedia isn't the best reference. But it will give you pointers to look further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

You need to get your fact correct

[Anonymous Coward]

The blue is growing. White is neutral. All else is shrinking. Notice the LARGE amount of Brown. Just out of curiosity, what has been CLAIMED to be shrinking, but is growing? And do you have some real links, say science mag?

As to you saying that there is little cause for alarm, I would like some links from those in the know. Or are you just BSing like many others here?

Re:Misleading info on Polar Bears

[MBraynard]

Yes, and if you read it, you will see that since the 1970s the population has risen from 5k to 25k. This during a period of alleged global warming. Their numbers are not in decline.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[Anonymous Coward]

This laptop is powered entirely by my own sense of self-satisfaction.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[Bluesman]

Congratulations on your Mac purchase :-)

it's 1550 AD in your alternate universe?

[rubycodez]

Explorers looked for northwest passage from 1400s to 1900, mapping the artic area. in 1906 Roald Amunsen navigated the passage in an ice-fortified ship. Been done with other such ships since then.

Re:it's 1550 AD in your alternate universe?

[at_18]

Explorers looked for northwest passage from 1400s to 1900

And didn't found it.

in 1906 Roald Amunsen navigated the passage in an ice-fortified ship

Funny that it took him two years (mostly spent with his ship blocked by ice) and several dogsleds. That's not my idea of "passage".

By years of study in the 30s

[benhocking]

Are you referring to the 1530s and Hernán Cortés? You're jumping the gun a little — it wasn't until 1576 that Martin Frobisher first tried to find the Northwest Passage. Of course, you could be referring to the 1630s as several attempts were made after this to find this passage that did not exist. Perhaps (but surely not) you're conflating the (prior lack of) existence of the Northwest Passage with the satellite record — which only stretches back about 30 years or so. Still, we know that the Northwest Passage has not been passable for well over 400 years.

Now, sarcasm aside, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't agree with the scientific consensus on global warming. You no doubt extol the virtues of having an open mind and being skeptical. Has it occurred to you that the scientists are just as likely to have underestimated our impact as to overestimated it? In fact, evidence suggests that, being the conservative people that scientists are (not in the political sense, mind you), scientists have repeatedly underestimated our impacts. That doesn't mean that certain non-scientists aren't greatly exaggerating things, but I'm guessing (again) that it's the mainstream science view that you're taking umbrage with.

Re:By years of study in the 30s

[TapeCutter]

From TFA: "Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: "We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme."

Last year was a record low for ice coverage, a quarter of what was left of the ice cap last year dissapeared this year, how extreme do you want it?

BTW: I entirely agree with the GP, the IPCC reports by their very nature are conservative in their estimates, but they are also by their very nature are the best representation of the current state of scientific knowledge. I think in time the IPCC will move toward the (depressing) picture drawn by people such as Hansen, Lovelock, Attenborough and many others.

Right, but not in a regular ship

[benhocking]

Read that article carefully to see exactly how he "traversed" the Northwest Passage. It wasn't open then, and hasn't been for at least 400 years (and probably an awful lot longer) — until now.

Try 400 years

[benhocking]

The first attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage happened well over 400 years ago (did your school not teach this in history class?), and several attempts have been made since then. This is the first time that it's been open as far as we know — and not for a lack of looking for it. I love the uncertainty and doubt, though — perhaps you can find some fear now?

Re:Winston Smith

[mce]

Nobody claimed that Amundsen has not done it back then. The claim is that the passage now is practicable in one go, because the whole passage is open. Amundsen needed several years to make it all the way through in bits and pieces. And he couldn't have done it in any larger ship than the one he used, due to the water water being as shallow as 3 feet. Not exactly an economically viable solution.

Re:Poorly worded

[p0tat03]

... massive change (think multiples not percentages) over the existing routes and is the reason why the EU and US are already pushing for it to be an international (rather than Canadian) trade route.

And why should Canada's sovereign territory being pieced apart? If it suddenly became globally advantageous to cross shipments through most of the US, the EU and the rest of the world would be perfectly justified in making it international territory as well?

You people can just fly/ship your people/things with our blessings (and taxes), the land and airspace belongs to us.

No, recorded history is over 400 years here

[benhocking]

Try reading up on the history of the Northwest Passage. Sure, we've only had a complete meter by meter map for 30ish years, but we've known about the lack of a Northwest Passage for centuries.

Right, with *icebreakers*

[benhocking]

Requiring an icebreaker to get through means that the passage wasn't really open (not that you're disputing that, but some on this thread can't quite seem to grasp the difference here).

Re:Cool!

[ozmanjusri]

it's a real boon to nautical industries like shipping and such.

...and the new midwest passage will be a real boon for shipping stuff to Minneapolis too.

Re:whoa.

[The Living Fractal]

What would be coincidental about it? Yes, the world is getting warmer. Everyone agrees with that basic statement. Now tell me _why_ it's because of Mankind. We already have geological proof that the world gets hotter and colder in cycles and we are (geologically speaking) getting out of an ice age. And I want hard numbers, like "23% of global warming compared to the mean of the last decade is due to CO2 emissions from the following nations" etc.

I'd take those odds

[benhocking]

If there was anyway to definitely prove it. We don't know anything about the entire passage prior to 400 years ago, but people have been interested in trying to find a way through continuously since then. If the passage in the last 400 years was ever as wide as it is now, it would have been easily spotted. Have you seen the satellite pictures? Here's a source that has a history for this summer.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[IgnoramusMaximus]

If we wanted to do good things for the environment, we'd have an mostly-nuclear merchant shipping fleet by now.

You are jesting, surely.

If you had any idea about the condition of the merchant ships and the way their crews are hired, you would have never said that.

Deep sea marine merchant fleets are governed by something which can only be described as a "law of the jungle", where the disposable crews (literally! I heard stories of men simply dumped in the next harbour, regardless of location, after losing arms or legs in accidents on the ship, without any concern about their means of medical care or transportation. Insurance? You gotta be kidding!) and rust-covered ships worked until they literally fall apart at sea, after which the owner simply collects more then their value, having shrewdly adjusted the insurance payout in anticipation. Any attempts at regulation usually result in the owners re-registering all of their ships in places in which bribery, corruption and non-existant regulation make up for an "ideal" merchant shipping home port. What did you think the words "flag of convenience" mean? Ever notice that all of those ships in the news which broke up on some rocks are flying weird flags from strange places, even though they are clearly owned by western conglomerates?

Adding nuclear power to this mix would be truly suicidal.

Re:whoa.

[Kjella]

Now tell me _why_ it's because of Mankind. We already have geological proof that the world gets hotter and colder in cycles and we are (geologically speaking) getting out of an ice age.

Smoothness. Just take a look at the curves, and you'll see lots of cycles, big and small but these are changes that happen over thousands (and in some cases, millions) of years. What we see today is much bigger than "the little ice age" and the yearly variations, it goes straight up and coincides with our industrialization and CO2 emissions. Just because our ability to accurately predict say a storm center months in advance is poor, we know what normal variation is and this isn't it. You seem to want proof on the level of "beyond any reasonable doubt". Personally I think those that are willing to risk destroying the planet on the off chance that "it might not be us" are should err on the side of caution, not suicidalness. YMMV.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Actually, having the Chinese, as well as all other nations, being well off frightens only the proponents of "globalization" (who are usually some variants of "conservative" these days - although any greed blinded individual will do) which hypocritically, depends on vast inequalities which can be exploited for profit.

Wealth and responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

The answer of course is to enable other nations to grow sustainable economies, centered around local products and services.

"Globalization" as it is envisioned and conducted at present is the bastard child resulting from an orgy of greed and colossal waste, orgy conducted with gleeful, utter abandon and contempt for the future generations.

It is the crowning achievement of the "I got mine, so Fuck You All!" world-view

To be fair, your point has one valid element: the Western working class is just as guilty of in this very attitude as the Western business elites, and so, by extension, also complicit in this. Only now do they realize the true implications of their short-sighted political apathy.

Slightly misunderstanding the story

[benhocking]

He didn't sail it in 1905, he traversed it (through various means) between 1903 and 1905. It was not an open passage, however.

And that the Vikings were sailing it sometime between 1200 and 1500 A.D.

Now that's a new one! Do you mean they reached Newfoundland (not news, I think most historians believe this) or that there's "evidence" that they traversed the NW Passage to Asia? If the latter, I'd suggest you use your skeptics eye with respect to that "evidence".

Re:Slightly misunderstanding the story

[Snocone]

Well, Ben, there's nothing that rises to the level of courtroom proof in the way of evidence excavated yet no, but the concept is not exactly new.

Basically, the Haida band, who are the indigenous First Nation of Haida Gwaii (the archipelago which you non-PC foreigners are probably more familar with as "the Queen Charlotte Islands") display such a number of cultural similarities to the Norsemen that many reasonable people find it less of a stretch to presume that there was contact between them than to assume a remarkable cascade of coincidences. Let us take an example, boat design.

""Yakutat," or "Northern-style" canoes include a variety of design forms, including a characteristic curve and swelling near the bow. The prow of the canoe gracefully curves up from the water and can be adorned by elaborate carvings."
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Treasures/Haida_Canoe/canoe.gif

Now, contrary to the learned discourse above, these are not actually characteristic of Haida design. There is one other culture that designed its ocean-going vessels with those same "characteristic" traits. Care to guess what that culture was?
http://www.geocities.com/dragar.geo/WSP/Pix/longship.gif

Those are just the first two images Google search came up with for each; if you look into it further, you'll find that the similarities are more striking than those two make apparent. Striking enough that when Haida/Tlingit take their canoes on cultural exchanges to Europe, they constantly get questions along the lines of "why did you make a longship out of a single tree trunk and paint it funny?", as Europeans just assume that the design is a conscious imitation of the Norse, not their own.

Also, the Haida are physiologically distinct, rather dramatically so in fact, from every other American aboriginal culture; they are taller, whiter, grow facial hair, and produce significant quantities of brunettes and redheads.

"Marchand also described the Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands whom he visited in 1791. He found them not differing materially in stature from Europeans, better proportioned and better formed than the Sitkans and without the gloomy and wild look of the latter. Their color he found did not differ from that of Frenchmen, and several were less swarthy "than the inhabitants of our country places' (Edward L. Keithahn, MONUMENTS IN CEDAR: The Authentic Story of the Totem Pole, Bonanza books, New York 1971:19-23, emphases supplied)."

This is not consistent with Haida mixing with Asian genetic pools, or any other Western North American genetic pool, or hell any other race bordering the entire Pacific for that matter. On the other hand, this is remarkably suggestive of significant admixture with a Scandinavian genetic pool, yes?

Anyhoo, if you'd like to look further into the theory that the "Vinland" of the sagas is actually British Columbia, specifically the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island, here's a page for you:

http://www.spirasolaris.ca/sbb4g1ev.html

Actually living in British Columbia, I can attest to the plausibility of all the little details. The one that really struck me was his identification of the Oregon grape with the always-problematic 'grapes' of the sagas. As pointed out on this page, the presentation in the sagas does seem facially invalid:

"As for the grapes in the Sagas, James Robert Enterline wrote in VIKING AMERICA (1972):
In the Saga of Eirik the Red, after Thorhall the Hunter went off by himself, some writers have inferred that he found grapes and ate of them, becoming intoxicated, for he was discovered on a steep crag where:" he lay gazing up into the air with wide-open mouth and nostrils, scratching and pincing himself and muttering something ."
The corresp

Re:And yet

[dbIII]

Consider a glacier. It is a big mass of ice running downhill. If it is relatively small and not on a very steep slope you can assume it is not moving and when it gets warm the main thing that is occuring is melting so the glacier retreats.

Consider another glacier - a really big one with a lot of ice behind it and a large height difference and/or steep slopes. Something like this moves faster. When it gets warmer it will move faster again. These are the glaciers that are advancing.

Unfortuantely we have people that really just want to win an argument that just take the amount of advance and retreat of a lot of glaciers and average it without considering why. They are completely ignoring the temperature measurements in those locations since they are pretending to use a glacier as a thermometer instead of the real thermometers that may actually be there.

As for the warm is good argument - I recommend talking to a farmer. Whether it is a El Nino or La Nina effect in the Pacific in a paticular year is enough to drive farmers backrupt off the land in some areas - they know about warm weather in the wrong spot.

Re:whoa.

[theJML]

I'll have to say I agree that we're, geologically speaking, still getting out of the last ice age. We haven't started the next one yet, and there's still plenty of ice around, so you can't really say we're done with this one.
 
  You'll also notice, from your graph, that the global temp is actually lower than a number of the previous spikes (showing that as far as that graph is concerned we're NOT warming anymore). You'll also notice that while it's not going down, it's steady (which doesn't show the continuous upward trend that news sources want you to believe). You'll find in your noted graph, on the left at around 425,000 years ago there was a similar leveling, which was followed by a spike and then a drop off in temp.

Now I'm not going to say that all of our CO2 emissions are helping things, but I would like to point out that the earth was doing a fine job spiking it's own temps long before we arrived. Volcanos, changes in the Earth's orbit around (Milankovitch cycles), changes in plate techtonics, solar output and meteorites have been deciding factors before and likely will continue that way in the future. I'm assuming they don't teach this stuff in school anymore, so here's a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age.
 
I find it #1 vain of the human race to think that they're the ONLY reason why temps can change in the world, #2 to think that they're the only thing that can fix it, #3 to think that this hasn't happened before and won't happen again. Humans are but a blip in the geologic time scale.
 
  That being said, there are plenty of other reasons besides global warming to go green, we will run out of oil sooner than later, and land/water pollutants cause more harm that CO2 anyway. Let's not be so one sided and try to come up with ways to make things better for the environment as a whole instead of throwing everything towards "global warming".

Re:If the ice melts and there's nobody on the beac

[TapeCutter]

"It was a whole lot warmer in the last interglacial, 120kya...balh, blah, blah"

It's not the temprature itself that people are concerned about (go back 250MYA and CO2 concentrations were 4X what they are now and the planet was 10C warmer. It's the unprecedented rate of change that is "unatural" and a "clear and present danger".

The melting of the North pole was predicted and it is now undeniably occuring, one of the predicted "flow on effects" of an ice free Artic ocean is desertification of midwest US ( modern humanity's "breadbasket"). Perhaps you would be happy to return to foraging for grubs and shellfish or hearding goats in an arid wasteland (re: middle east), me - I'm kinda fond of the idea of growing our staple diet in a predictable and sustainable manner. If you think discussing the possiblity of a global famine is hyperbowl then take a good look at what is happening to SE Australia (where I happen to live), if you prefer history then take a look at the "dustbowl" years in the US or the many cases where ancient civilizations crumbled due to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Not to mention global fisheries have been collapsing like dominoes since the 1980's....opps - I just did.

Currently the Artic is predicted to be ice free in 40-50yrs so (according to predictions) the US still has a while before it "dries up", but this year's data (to quote TFA) was "extreme". I have no idea what a 25% reduction from last years record low does to the statistical trend or the predictions of when (no longer "if") the Artic will become ice free in the summer. However using the figures from TFA, if the next three years are as "extreme" as this one then the ice will have receded into oblivion before kyoto even comes up for renewal in 2012.

"It's no mystery."

It is a huge mystery but it's not a total mystery thanks to thousands of scientists who have been very actively working on the broarder question of the "dynamic stablity" of the biosphere in general and climate in particular. Thanks to this large but much maligned group of boffins there have been huge strides in our knowledge over the last three decades (including the sources for your "facts"). Yet when the consensus predictions of these "grant seeking leaches" start occuring in front of our very eyes at a much more alarming rate there are still those who will brush it all aside with some self-serving babble about our distant ancestors who had not even developed language let alone a global econmy and infrastructure that is TOTALLY dependent on the predictability of annual weather patterns (ie:climate). Arguing about the exact definition of an "open" as it pertains to the N.W. passage is the preverbial arranging of deck chairs.

Disclaimer: Sorry to pick on you personally, please take it as a general comment about the level of anthropogenic arrogance on slashdot regarding AGW.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[IgnoramusMaximus]

*OR* the hypothetical nuclear fleet would have better hiring and maintenance practices, you dumb fuck.

Am an in awe of your grasp of the situation, specially when highlighted with such creative epithets. Now, do please explain how does this hypothetical fleet has its maintenance and hiring practices improved, given that vast majority of it is registered in, say, that bastion of high standards of regulation: Antigua, and owned by companies registered in, say, Dubai. For a bonus question: explain away your method of forcing the merchants to use the astronomically expensive (in relation to everything else) nuclear reactors followed by your gracing us with your enlightening views on the methods of securing the nuclear fuel and the ships themselves from falling into the hands of some bearded and beturbaned individuals with somewhat antisocial attitudes.

Seriously, you just blindly grafted on an aspect of reality onto a hypothetical alternative. How pig shit stupid can you get?

I am reeling under the assault of your great wit, so cleverly based upon words of "shit" and "pig". As to being blindly "grafted" on an aspect of reality, I am afraid I got you beat there, since your entire rant consists of "hypothetical" hot air, which does not even withstand most cursory of "hypothetical" searches for traces of common sense.