So, if you look at it from more of a chemistry point of view, ‘cold’ isn’t really a thing. There is only a lack of heat. Temperature is all about measuring heat. I wonder what this could mean for ice types and their use of cold? Do they take heat away from their environment for their attacks?

Not so much for their attacks as it is just to exist. This would be why many ice-types, particularly those that have the ability Snow Warning, seem to emit auras of cold around themselves as well. A constant barrage of heat, such as from fire, can therefore easily overwhelm an ice-type because it’s difficult to process that much energy at once.

(Also, I stand corrected by my last post. Only fire is this sort of a problem for ice-types. Steel and rock fall under the same category as fighting.)