Leading scientific expert Peter Wadhams warned this week that it may be only four years until the Arctic—a place once known for its ice—experiences a total melting of its sea ice in the summer months. Wadhams called this a "global disaster" with "terrible" implications. Well Prof. Wadhams, perhaps you should change your name to Prof. Deborah Downer? Because it looks like you forgot about all the money$$$??

Sure, the total melting of the ice caps will be the most striking visible symptom of the man-made global warming that will eventually destroy us all. But before mankind is pitched into its inevitable final Water World-esque battle for our earth's swamped, dwindling resources, a lot of people could make a lot of ca$$$h. The NYT reports that the US, China, and several European nations are all furiously jockeying for political position in the Arctic and its surrounding countries, due to the fact that the receding ice is exposing huge new swaths of land that could be mined for valuable fuel, minerals, or, who knows, buried trea$$$ure(??).

"We are treated so differently than just a few years ago," said Jens B. Frederiksen, Greenland's vice premier, in his simple office here. "We are aware that is because we now have something to offer, not because they've suddenly discovered that Inuit are nice people."

Dude! So not true! We love the Inoot peoples! Do you guys like champagne? Have some! I know some nice pretty girls who are dying to lay around the Greenland tundra in bikinis, at the instruction of the US government. Just say the word! Bros are bros!

Environmental disaster FTW!

[Photo: AP]