What is it that alarmists actually want?

It's rare that I praise The Guardian - and today is no exception. In a piece about thinning Arctic sea ice, Juliette Jowit gets some exercise by jumping to conclusions.

The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, raise the possibility that the loss of the Arctic sea ice could accelerate, because as the ice recedes the water temperature rises.

Really? What does the author of the study say, Juliette?

Katharine Giles of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London, who led the study, said it was too soon to say whether the downward trend would continue and lead to summer sea ice disappearing even faster than forecast. "It's dangerous to extrapolate out because colder weather would mean the ice could recover again," said Giles.

So the "possibility" that the Arctic melt could accelerate is "dangerous" to suggest. Not least because, as the article points out, the Arctic has been getting colder. The loss of sea ice in the last two years was not caused by warming temperatures - man-made or otherwise - but by entirely natural warm currents and strong winds. As the author points out, the Arctic is getting colder.

The north pole was predicted to be ice free this year by the alarmists - but it wasn't. Instead the sea ice extent actually grew (that's why this year is the second lowest, not the lowest). Does anyone remember the coverage of the guy who was intending to paddle his kayak to the north pole earlier in the year? He appeared on BBC TV and in lots of newspaper articles to publicise his stunt - and what happened to him?

He failed - miserably. Not that you'd know that from the news here which, having seen him off in a blaze of glory, then allowed the dismal failure of his attempt to drop from their radar. Doesn't fit the agenda, you see.

According to this site monitoring sea ice extent, the Arctic is recovering nicely - it already appears to be above 2005 levels and may even be approaching 2002 levels (my eye-sight ain't what it used to be). You can use this site to compare sea ice today with historic extents going back to 1979. As you can see, October 27th 2008 doesn't look a great deal different to October 27th 1979.

Perhaps the most curious thing about all this is that the alarmists are not jumping for joy at the way their predictions are failing to materialise. You'd have thought they'd be happy that the Arctic is recovering nicely, temperatures have cooled globally over the last 10 years, polar bears are thriving, and the human fingerprint that is supposed to prove we are the cause of global warming has failed to materialise in the tropical upper troposphere indicating that whatever did cause the globe to warm it wasn't man-made CO2 emissions.

So, given that the earth, despite all the nasty things man does, is doing very well thank you very much, you'd have thought they'd be content. Instead their hand wringing becomes even more frenzied.

So why do they seem more determined than ever to push this busted theory forward? You don't suppose that they might actually have a hidden agenda do you?