Record numbers of narwhals trapped in the ice, mysterious decline in the caribou population, snowy owls spotted unusually far south, record levels of plankton in the Arctic ocean.

But there’s still plenty of people who believe that climate change isn’t happening - read the comments on this link to see angry people, convinced that the unusually early and heavy snowfall means that there’s no such thing as global warming (see our last post about why “global warming” is a misnomer).

There are still scientists claiming that it’s a waste of time to try to fight climate change, and trying to convince the U.N. to quit spending money on it when there’s more pressing problems to deal with, like the economy.

And then on the other hand, there’s geopolitical analysts like Gwynne Dyer who say that if we don’t do something about climate change already, the economy will be the least of our worries while we deal with an “apocalyptic wipeout scenario".

Extremism? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s hope so. But speaking of hope, we here at News of the North are feeling hopeful about President-Elect Obama’s attitude towards climate change. While he cannot yet attend the UN climate change talks in Poland, he has expressed his views in this video and promised to commit the United States to climate change action.

Let Obama know that climate change is important to you. Sign up to a petition here to ask him to address the issue, and suggest some first steps, at Worldchanging: Inaugurate Change.