Global Warming Update Eskimos Spot First Palm Tree

In a special inarguable event that global warming is progressing rapidly, a group of Eskimos noticed - while hunting for caribou on the sort of unusually balmy day that they have been exposed with increasing frequency - a tree they were not aware of growing high above the tundra.

Priding themselves on knowing the flora and fauna of their land, they puzzled over the strange growth.

"Look," one said, "a tree I've never seen before."

"No branches," a second confused.

"Even a bear could not climb it," a third noted.

Then one of them pointed to the groups of large roundest green objects in high-and odd-looking leaves, known in warmer climes as palm leaves. "Look," he speculated, "big fruit, maybe."

Just then one of the ovoid objects happened to break loose and fall toward them.

Unfortunately for the guy who had just identified it as fruit, hit the object him upside down and was pretty heavy and hard, it knocked him out.

When he awoke, he felt the lump on his head, and concluded: "Not very mature."

Respect for the environment, as all Eskimos famously known to do, except when poaching, they decided not to chop the tree down to take it back via dogsled for identification, but simply to return the unidentified object that had hit their unsuspecting fellow villager on the Noggin.

When they returned to their village, they went straight to the town elder, who was revered for many reasons, one of them is that he was the only resident in the village, as a year when the salmon catch had been particularly bountiful, had managed to wangle a trip to Florida.

When he saw the strange object, his eyebrow pierced and he looked up and said: "I thought you went caribou hunting?"

"We did," one of the hunters said.

"I did not know that there are reindeer in Florida," he said questioningly.

"Florida?" Another hunter asked, now even more mystified.

"Yes, because as far as I know, this thing grows only in Florida. As you know, one time in my younger days, I went to a mid-winter break."

"So you know what it is?" The guy who was hit in the head with it asked.

"Yes, he replied." It's called a coconut. "

"Coconut?" They variously perplexed, goes around for another look.

"Yes," the oldest confirmed. "How did you find it?"

"In a tree we have never seen before."

"And where did you see this tree?" The withered man in doubt.

"In caribou country," one of the hunters confirmed.

"I swear," another added.

"So," he said to them, "thanks to global warming, our way of life is changing. You have found a palm in Alaska."

"Palm tree?" They wondered.

"Yes," he said, and whacked the coconut with a large knife.

He savored a sip of the nectar and passes coconut around so the hunters could see milky delectation, he concluded: "And if I live long enough, maybe I will get to enjoy the climate in Florida without making a second trip there. "