As the ice melts, national rivalries heat up over oil and gas deposits and shipping routes October 9, 2008: A new epoch is beginning at the top of the Earth, where the historic melting of the vast Arctic ice cap is opening a forbidding, beautiful, and neglected swath of the planet. Already, there is talk that potentially huge oil and natural gas deposits lie under the Arctic waters, rendered more accessible by the shrinking of ice cover. Valuable minerals, too. Sea lanes over the top of the world will dramatically cut shipping times and costs. Fisheries and tourism will shift northward. In short, the frozen, fragile north will never be the same. More >>>
[I had to read the above paragraph twice to realize what was bothering me about it. And it is not that this is not a reasonable article. However, from the perspective of the Inuit people the Arctic is their home, where they lived have lived a sustainable life for thousands of years. Today their villages are threatened by rising sea level and their way of life is melting along with the sea ice. If all this is not bad enough the oil companies will be looking to drill for oil that is expected to be found in this unexplored region, which may have the effect of accelerating climate change. Ed.]
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