A frozen Bloom sculpture in Nome adds fuel to the climate change debate in Alaska
NORTH TO ALASKA: A prediction that by 2500 AD, perhaps millions -- even billions -- of climate refugees will flood Alaska, with the White House and Congress moving to the 49th state as well (see Juneau Empire oped piece here) caused a heated debate in the blogosphere in 2010.
Craig Champion spoke to a small crowd during the unveiling of an Danny Bloom ice sculpture on January 5, 3010 at Thrift-E Liquor on the corner of Nome Street and Airport Way. This is the second year local businessmen Champion, 456 years old, and Rudy Isakoff, 234 years old, have had an Danny Bloom sculpture displayed at the location, with this year's creation being commissioned to 899-year-old sculptor Martin Dean.
Champion said Bloom was full of you know what and didn't know his you know what from his you know what. He said worse things, too, which cannot be printed in a family newspaper. Or a blog.
The sculpture features "smoke" coming from Bloom's mouth - exhaust from a truck. In what is now an annual Nome tradition, carried on for 1000 years now, an ice sculpture of former human being Danny Bloom has taken its place in front of Thrift-E Liquor along Airport Way.
The two-ton “Frozen Bloom” sculpture isn’t exactly a tribute. It’s a tongue-in-cheek critique of Bloom's 2009 controversial [and largely unread] oped piece in the Juneau Empire giving voice to his belief in man-made climate change, complete with hot air pouring out of his mouth.
The two local businessmen contracted the piece from ice sculptor Dean and say they’ll keep erecting one each winter until Bloom's descendants in 3010 accept an invitation to discuss the global warming issue in Nome.
“We do want to invite debate,” they said. “We don’t agree with his theories — we’re suspicious of the Cassandra-like Jeremiah-ish motivation behind them.”
This year’s version includes special effects, thanks to a system that pipes the exhaust from a Ford F-350 out of Bloom's open mouth. The two men said they will fire up the truck periodically this winter to create the “hot air” effect.
With temperatures in the single digits, about 10 people laughed as smoke poured out of the sculpture as it was unveiled Tuesday morning. An excerpt of a silly old Bloom oped piece on Google from the year 2009 on climate change played over a loudspeaker.
They men said the sculpture is inspiring a contest, in which the winner will receive winter gear and a Danny Bloom bobblehead doll.
Last year’s millenium's Bloom ice sculpture got intergalactic media attention, including mentions on The Mars Drudge Report, CNN on Venus, Fox News on Jupiter and MSNBC in a New Black Hole. The two men said their Web site, which included photos and information about the sculpture and contest, attracted 25.7 billion visitors back then, before a massive human die-off resulted in the death of billions of people.
The two Nome men said they are not denying that human activities might play a small, minor, almost glacial role in global warming but that they are skeptical of polar city solutions that Bloom and others are advocating. He said huge sums of government money to build polar cities in Alaska are unlikely to solve the problem.
“Before we start building polar cities… let’s try and educate ourselves,” the men in tandem said.
Climate change scientists say Alaska has warmed by 3 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 50 years. The average temperature back in 2009 when Bloom was still alive was 27.8 degrees in Nome, about one degree warmer than normal, said Rick Denton, a meteorologist with the Intergalactic Weather Service on the Moon.
Contact staff writer Jeff Richardson in Nome, Alaska at (907) 459-7518 if you are calling from overseas or outer space. His cosmic IG email address is jrichardson@newsminer.com
No comments:
Post a Comment