Submit your comments on this article |
Great White North |
Open Seas |
2012-10-31 |
![]() Understandably enough, most commentary on a navigable Arctic accentuates economic opportunities, such as extracting natural resources and shortening sea voyages. Countries fronting on polar waters -- the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden comprise the intergovernmental Arctic Council -- will enjoy exclusive rights to fish and tap undersea resources in hundreds of thousands of square miles of water off their shores. Nations holding waterfront property in the Arctic will bolster their coastiess to police their territorial seas and exclusive economic zones during ice-free intervals. But they will not be the only beneficiaries. Former U.S. Navy chief oceanographer David Titley estimates that "sometime between 2035 and 2040 there is a pretty good chance that the Arctic Ocean will be essentially ice-free for about a month" each year. If so, polar shipping lanes will cut transit distances by up to 40 percent, saving ship owners big bucks on fuel and maintenance. They could pass those savings on to producers and consumers of the cargo their vessels carry. Global warming, it appears, could bestow significant advantages on mariners, fostering economic growth in the bargain. New sources of wealth concentrate minds. But the geopolitics of climate change is just as consequential as the economics, and more intriguing. A strategic realignment could take place as the geographic setting -- the arena where great powers grapple for advantage -- widens to enfold a new inland sea. Navies will dispatch squadrons to the Arctic Ocean lest it become a theater for naval rivalry. |
Posted by:Au Auric |
#3 Joe is right, what about the South Pole? We could as a united planet cut a sea-level canal across Antartica that would be ice free for 20 minutes every 10 million years. Shovel ready. |
Posted by: Shipman 2012-10-31 16:35 |
#2 Every disaster is a new opportunity, right Al? |
Posted by: Alaska Paul 2012-10-31 01:58 |
#1 Sniff, sniff, is there no love = hate for the SOUTH POLE??? |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-10-31 00:25 |