Regis Philbin
Apr 20th, 2006, 07:16 PM
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,409001,00.html
Climate Change Sparks Scrap for Arctic Resources
By Philip Bethge
While scientists and conservationists worry about the potentially dire consequences of global warming, politicians and businessmen are already battling over how to reap the economic benefits from the Arctic thaw.
Arctic ice is melting faster than ever before.
It's not always easy hoisting a flag on Hans Island. The Canadians even had to bring along their own rocks to weigh down the foot of the mast. But then nothing could stand in the way of the success of operation "Frozen Beaver" -- at least from a Canadian perspective.
It was last July when Canadian soldiers raised the maple leaf banner over the tiny isle between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Not long after that, Canada's Defense Minister Bill Graham flew in by helicopter to proclaim that Hans Island will always remain Canadian. The provocation worked: Denmark promptly cabled a note of protest to Ottawa.
The diplomatic spat marked the current highpoint of a bizarre scuffle over who owns a 1.3 square kilometer bit of barren rock in the middle of the Arctic Nares Straits. Its biggest attraction is what is probably the northern-most outhouse in the world. Yet for Canada and Denmark -- a country which has also repeatedly planted its flag in the islet's stony ground -- the dispute means much more: Hans Island is a test case for the sort of territorial rows which could soon become a lot more common north of the Arctic Circle.
Carving up the frosty Arctic is a hot topic right now for many countries. At stake are the sovereign rights to enormous reserves of natural resources, as well the control of seafaring routes which have until now been blocked by ice. The reason for the newly awakened interest is that the Arctic is rapidly warming. Nowhere else on the planet have such far-reaching consequences of global warming been observed. While biologists and climate researchers fear melting icecaps, rising floodwaters and extinctions of several species, oil and gas companies are hoping the Artic thaw will enable them to access vast new energy sources.
"How our climate will look in the next few decades, is being decided in the Arctic," says Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam (AWI). This week Hubberten played host to Germany's first "Arctic Science Summit Week" in Potsdam near Berlin. Around 150 scientists from all over the world came to discuss the effects that Arctic warming would have on landmasses, people, animals, plants and the global climate.
"We are noticing a rapid decrease in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the permafrost on the ground is melting," says Volker Rachold of the International Arctic Science Committee, an organization that coordinates Arctic research worldwide. Scientists say that air temperatures are higher than they have been for centuries. And as a consequence, Greenland's ice is melting more quickly than ever and Alaska's glaciers continue to shrink rapidly.
Climate Change Sparks Scrap for Arctic Resources
By Philip Bethge
While scientists and conservationists worry about the potentially dire consequences of global warming, politicians and businessmen are already battling over how to reap the economic benefits from the Arctic thaw.
Arctic ice is melting faster than ever before.
It's not always easy hoisting a flag on Hans Island. The Canadians even had to bring along their own rocks to weigh down the foot of the mast. But then nothing could stand in the way of the success of operation "Frozen Beaver" -- at least from a Canadian perspective.
It was last July when Canadian soldiers raised the maple leaf banner over the tiny isle between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Not long after that, Canada's Defense Minister Bill Graham flew in by helicopter to proclaim that Hans Island will always remain Canadian. The provocation worked: Denmark promptly cabled a note of protest to Ottawa.
The diplomatic spat marked the current highpoint of a bizarre scuffle over who owns a 1.3 square kilometer bit of barren rock in the middle of the Arctic Nares Straits. Its biggest attraction is what is probably the northern-most outhouse in the world. Yet for Canada and Denmark -- a country which has also repeatedly planted its flag in the islet's stony ground -- the dispute means much more: Hans Island is a test case for the sort of territorial rows which could soon become a lot more common north of the Arctic Circle.
Carving up the frosty Arctic is a hot topic right now for many countries. At stake are the sovereign rights to enormous reserves of natural resources, as well the control of seafaring routes which have until now been blocked by ice. The reason for the newly awakened interest is that the Arctic is rapidly warming. Nowhere else on the planet have such far-reaching consequences of global warming been observed. While biologists and climate researchers fear melting icecaps, rising floodwaters and extinctions of several species, oil and gas companies are hoping the Artic thaw will enable them to access vast new energy sources.
"How our climate will look in the next few decades, is being decided in the Arctic," says Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam (AWI). This week Hubberten played host to Germany's first "Arctic Science Summit Week" in Potsdam near Berlin. Around 150 scientists from all over the world came to discuss the effects that Arctic warming would have on landmasses, people, animals, plants and the global climate.
"We are noticing a rapid decrease in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the permafrost on the ground is melting," says Volker Rachold of the International Arctic Science Committee, an organization that coordinates Arctic research worldwide. Scientists say that air temperatures are higher than they have been for centuries. And as a consequence, Greenland's ice is melting more quickly than ever and Alaska's glaciers continue to shrink rapidly.