Another big Putin win. With Donald Trump in office the US will continue to pretend global warming is a myth and that the Arctic icecap is not melting, while Putin, as true a believer in climate change as you will find on this planet, keeps on course to turn the ice free Arctic Ocean into a Russian lake. It is madness on our part. The Republican Party has given the Russians carte blanche in the Arctic because in order to confront them in the arctic we need to dramatically upgrade our fleet of arctic vessels–we have two ancient ice breakers of cold war vintage–and infrastructure. But to do that, one would have to admit that the Arctic icecap is melting. But if the Arctic icecap is melting it means that temperatures are rising. And if temperatures are rising it means that global warming is a fact. But global warming is a myth, Trump says, and Vladimir Putin smiles.