Featuring:

Vladimir Putin, Stephen Harper

Arctic Antics

Top of the morning to you my plaid friends, from the top of the globe! The Avenger has touched down here at the North Pole to top off my martini on polar ice, and update you on the events alluded to in this month?s adventure. And boy is it getting hot up here! Both climatically and politically, with many more stories breaking on these ice-capades. Ha! Breaking! Ice! Get it? Let?s get to it.

So unless you?ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years, all of you have heard about this global warming thing. Yes, average global temperatures do seem to be on the rise. And this process is actually accentuated in the Arctic region, with average annual temperatures rising by 7 or 8 degrees in the last fifty years in parts of Alaska and Canada. Even in Greenland, where the biggest agricultural commodity used to be gravel, temperatures have risen so dramatically that they are now growing and exporting hay and root crops. The permanent ice sheet that has covered most of Arctic Ocean for as long as we humans have been around is dissipating fast under these circumstances, and the repercussions of this melt go far beyond the loss of polar bears or Santa?s workshop. Sorry Santa, for once your fat ass does not take top billing. Get used to it. Perhaps up to 40% of the permanent sea ice has already disappeared in the last twenty years, and it appears the loss rates are accelerating as each year passes. Some particular projections predict a largely ice-free summer as early as
2013; still others speculate total loss of the entire ice cap by 2050. Even conservative estimates expect there to be virtually no solid sea ice to speak of by 2100. Whether its now or later, this melting ice scenario on the top of the world makes for radical changes to our planet?s future...

As pointed out by my adventures in this issue, the declining permanent ice cover results in two distinct topics for discourse:

1)untold amounts of natural resources like oil and natural gas are going to be discovered in the area, and

2) global transportation patterns are going to be radically affected. The resources issue is the one that everyone and their brother is focusing on right now?and is being wildly overplayed in the press. The transportation issue is the one that is vastly more important and has way more strategic importance than a bunch of damn oil ever will. But because of these two topics, there will also be:

3) pretentious political or perhaps pugilistic clashes between global powers! This is serious shit! Let?s take it one issue at a time:

1. The natural resources thing: this is the easy part. According to the US Geological Survey, perhaps up to 25% of the world?s undiscovered oil and gas is thought to lie under the Arctic seabed. Why is it undiscovered? Because there?s too much damned ice in the way to get to it right now! So the basic equation for the future is: Goodbye ice; Hello oil! Russia stands to gain the most, with some speculators calculating that the Ruskies may end up controlling ten times the oil that Saudi Arabia possesses once those arctic fields come into production. Damn! The US, Canada, Norway, and Denmark fully expect to cash in as well, and even China has hinted that it will be a player in this oil rush, even though it has no arctic shoreline at all! Drilling in open ocean is fair game to any players with the ability to get there. And speaking of getting there...


2. The transportation thing: When the ice is gone, global shipping routes will be transformed immediately and irrevocably. Check out a globe sometime. A real globe?you know, those basketball shaped things with the continents on them. See if you can figure out the shortest route from California to England. How about from China to Florida. How about from Italy to Japan. Are you getting the picture? All those trips are significantly shorter going through the Arctic
Ocean?but not yet! We have to wait for the ice to melt first. When it does, the pattern of international shipping will be transformed immensely. Please keep in mind that 99% of all the goods you will ever buy were transported to your country via a ship. If there were to be a worldwide freeze on international ocean shipping, your Wal-mart shelves would be completely empty within a week! How do you think they get all that cheap shit from China to your hometown, and
still keep it so cheap? Oceanic shipping is big business. Here is some real food for thought: to service all this shipping traffic, as well as all the support structure for
the on-coming oil industries, there will be all sorts of new ports and towns and possibly cities created on these arctic shores. There are already talk of establishing an express lane of shipping from Murmansk, Russia to the Hudson Bay port of Churchill in Canada....which ties directly into the entire North American commercial railroad network. That is just one example of hundreds in the works. The human impact to this currently sparsely populated part of the planet will be
profound. And all that human activity will inevitably cause some human frictions, which brings us to...

3. The potential political pugilists thing: Conflict is coming to these chilly seas my plaid friends. For sure. The core of the problem lies in the fact that there is no singular authority or treaty or law which governs ownership and development of these open seas. So its every man for himself in an all-out grab-fest. The closest thing we?ve got to a regulatory body on this is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): an international agreement that establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing the uses of the world?s oceans. Almost all countries in the world have signed onto this treaty...except the United States, for reasons which continue to mystify anybody with functioning grey matter. This treaty allows governments an exclusive economic zone of up to 200 nautical miles from their shores in which all the shit in it is theirs. But if you want more than that, then each country has to make a case that land further out is geologically/scientifically connected to their continental shelf, which is the underwater land that slopes down from the countries? coasts. If a country can prove such a claim, then they get title to all the shit in that zone as well. And of course the shit we are talking about here is not walrus shit?.its energy resources and shipping routes man! Big business! And this is why countries are now at odds with each other to figure out who owns what, and are busy collecting data to support their claims of extended arctic ownership...
Of course you now know that the countries at play in this game are the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norway. Each of these states has arctic coastline, and thus already has a 200 nautical mile zone of ownership from every parcel of ice-encrusted rock they possess. What is in question is all the rest of the water in between, and how it should be divvied up. Let me be frank with you: Russia has the most to gain here, and they have been the busiest Cossack beavers of them all, but others have made real moves to cement their icy claims too. A few points of note to catch you up to speed:

2. The transportation thing: When the ice is gone, global shipping routes will be transformed immediately and irrevocably. Check out a globe sometime. A real globe?you know, those basketball shaped things with the continents on them. See if you can figure out the shortest route from California to England. How about from China to Florida. How about from Italy to Japan. Are you getting the picture? All those trips are significantly shorter going through the Arctic Ocean?but not yet! We have to wait for the ice to melt first. When it does, the pattern of international shipping will be transformed immensely. Please keep in mind that 99% of all the goods you will ever buy were transported to your country via a ship. If there were to be a worldwide freeze on international ocean shipping, your Wal-mart shelves would
be completely empty within a week! How do you think they get all that cheap shit from China to your hometown, and still keep it so cheap? Oceanic shipping is big business. Here is some real food for thought: to service all this shipping traffic, as well as all the support structure for the on-coming oil industries, there will be all sorts of new ports and towns and possibly cities created on these arctic shores. There are already talk of establishing an express lane of shipping from Murmansk, Russia to the Hudson Bay port of Churchill in Canada....which ties directly into the entire North American commercial railroad network. That is just one example of hundreds in the works. The human impact to this currently sparsely populated part of the planet will be profound. And all that human activity will inevitably cause some human frictions, which brings us to...

3. The potential political pugilists thing: Conflict is coming to these chilly seas my plaid friends. For sure. The core of the problem lies in the fact that there is no singular authority or treaty or law which governs ownership and development of these open seas. So its every man for himself in an all-out grab-fest. The closest thing we?ve got to a regulatory body on this is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): an international agreement that establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing the uses of the world?s oceans. Almost all countries in the world have signed onto this treaty...except the United States, for reasons which continue to mystify anybody with functioning grey matter. This treaty allows governments an exclusive economic zone of up to 200 nautical miles from their shores in which all the shit in it is theirs. But if you want more than that, then each country has to make a case that land further out is geologically/scientifically connected to their continental shelf, which is the underwater land that slopes down from the countries? coasts. If a country can prove such a claim, then they get title to all the shit in that zone as well. And of course the shit we are talking about here is not walrus shit?.its energy resources and shipping routes man! Big business!
And this is why countries are now at odds with each other to figure out who owns what, and are busy collecting data to
support their claims of extended arctic ownership...

Of course you now know that the countries at play in this game are the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norway. Each of these states has arctic coastline, and thus already has a 200 nautical mile zone of ownership from every parcel of ice-encrusted rock they possess. What is in question is all the rest of the water in between, and how it should be divvied up. Let me be frank with you: Russia has the most to gain here, and they have been the busiest Cossack beavers of
them all, but others have made real moves to cement their icy claims too. A few points of note to catch you up to speed:

-The Russians put forward a bold proposal years ago to claim half of the entire Arctic Ocean. They have been collecting ocean floor data ever since to prove that the undersea Lomonosov Range is an extension of the Eurasian landmass, and thus everything up to the North pole is part of their territory.

-Since the US has not ratified the UNCLOS, it cannot submit any claim to extended territory for itself, nor even sit on the board to decide on the claims made by other states like Russia. Out in the cold by itself, so to speak.

-As depicted in the comic, Russia actually did send two small submarines on a mission to plant a Russian flag on the sea floor at the true North Pole on Thursday, 2 August 2007. Sound silly? Then why do all nations plant flags at major points of conquest? This shit is real. They are solidifying their claim.

-Shortly after the flag-planting stunt, Russia reinstated its old Cold War strategic bomber patrols over Arctic territory. In Sept of 2007, it even conducted a ?show of strength? exercise in Arctic airspace in which 12 bombers fired cruise missiles at targets.

-August 2007: Canadian Prime minister Stephen Harper announced plans to build two military bases in the Arctic region. He was quoted in reference to the Arctic sovereignty issue by saying: ?Use it or lose it?

-The US and Canada are still in disagreement over who actually owns the Northwest Passage

-Canada and Denmark are at odds over ownership of Hans Island, a dink-ass rock outcrop between Canada?s Ellesmere Island and Danish Greenland.

-Speaking of Greenland, in Dec 2008 the indigenous Greenlanders suddenly realized that their once useless chuck of rock and ice is now warmer and much more valuable for its oil potential. They voted in a referendum to become autonomous (and virtually independent) from Denmark. The Danes are none to happy about this development.

-Maritime border disputes still exist between Denmark and Norway, Norway and Russia....and Russia and everybody on the planet.

-Nov 2008, the EU suggested that it should speak as a common voice for its constituent states on all matters Arctic, thus strengthening the hand of Norway and Denmark together. All of this shit will be coming to a head in the coming decade as the ice retreats enough for a lot of these economic
activities to go forward, and for the competing country claims to get chaotic. Who have I failed to mention here? Ah yes! The one million or so indigenous people who currently populate these areas, along with the local wildlife. Yeah....these folks are fucked. Polar bears have recently made the endangered species list, and you might as well add the local tribes as well. As has happened throughout history, the quest for riches and territories will probably bulldoze right over all indigenous groups, from the Sami in Russia to the Inuit of Canada to the Eskimos of Alaska. Sorry, the Plaid Avenger is a dealer of truth and knowledge, even when it sucks. Does that really piss you off? Good! then do something about it! What can you do? Well, if you are in the US, you might want to write a letter to your Senator to ask him/her to push for the vote for US acceptance of UNCLOS. If you care about bears and seals and shit, then turn to the World Wildlife Fund to find out what you can do to help the soon-to-be-decimated plants and animals of the Arctic. Want to help the peoples? Look up the UNPFII, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Finally, if you just want an icy, yet sound investment, then start buying up parcels of Arctic shoreline! That shit is going to be worth millions as the 21st century unfolds. I myself hope to open the northernmost bar on the planet somewhere on the steep scree slopes of the Greenland north coast....Until next moth, Party on my plaid friends-

PA

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