New Map of Carved Up Arctic 294
thepacketmaster writes "The International Boundaries Research Unit has recently published a new jurisdictional map of the Arctic, using geographic and legal definitions. Now it appears Santa Claus could potentially be Danish. But as pointed out in an article at The Star, more important than St. Nick is 'an area thought to contain one-fifth of the world's undiscovered and recoverable oil and gas resources,' and from this map, Russia has a huge claim in that."
Um, why not Antarctica (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Um, why not Antarctica (Score:2, Interesting)
More to the point, Energy can be gotten from other sources besides oil. Whereas plastics (A medical revolution) may not be, and can be recycled.
My point is this. There will be higher priorities to use crude oil than energy because there are alternatives to produce said energy where there might not be in others.
There's still some ice at the North Pole (Score:5, Interesting)
The North Pole isn't quite open water yet. But it's getting close. A friend of mine just went there. By ship. Admittedly it was a nuclear-powered icebreaker. But pictures taken near the pole show patches of open water.
Lucky Planet? (Score:1, Interesting)
If the oil/gas situation is really that bad, maybe we should be moving quickly to alternatives instead of looking for a way to stave off the inevitable depletion of such resources for a few pathetic years.
Oh that's right, there's money to be made here. I guess that's all that matters. If Earth is lucky, humanity will obliterate itself off the planet before we fubar it for every other species too (not that we aren't already doing a great job of that already).
Re:And that, boys and girls... (Score:3, Interesting)
And which one would that be?
The one that has trouble asserting its northern sovereignty because all it's got is literally a bunch of natives armed with WW2-era rifles up there. The one that's also spread itself thin in Afghanistan while recruitment numbers plummet.
While the rest of the world runs out of resources, us Canadians are sitting on a veritable goldmine of oil, precious metals, and uranium. This is suicide without a large military to assert your control over said resources.
And given that the Americans have given their economy AND military the royal shaft over these past few years, they'd be hard pressed to come to ANYONE's aid at this point. If Russia is to reassert itself as a power its prime time is coming soon.
Re:And that, boys and girls... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Danish??? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where he lives, but everybody knows that he rests in Bari, Italy and had a Turkish passport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas [wikipedia.org]
Oh well, Turkey wasn't Turkey at the time and we didn't invent passports yet. That's probably why we can't agree on his nationality :-)
Re:Yeah... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you have it right, except that it's Medvedev now (two leaders that agree with each other a lot does not necessarily mean that one is the other's puppet - especially not when they've been working together and influencing each other for many years). The thing is that overall he's improved life in Russia. The average Russian is happier to have a job and food on the table (and the table and the chairs and the room they're all in...) than he is upset over the death of Ms. Politkovskaya or the feelings of BP's shareholders. Remember, rigged or not Medvedev would have won the vote by a landslide - that wouldn't have been the case if Putin's reign had been a continuation of the disaster that was Yeltsin.
The Soviet Union functioned for a long time without the freedoms we seem to predicate our very existence on, and the restrictions Putin's imposing in Russia are nothing compared to what came before. And as long as they're not launching their nukes at us and willing to trade (even if it is strictly on their terms) I'm content to let them govern their land as they see fit.
So The question is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Polar bear cavity searches (Score:5, Interesting)
True story:
A few decades ago, Norwegian arctic researchers wanted to determine if polar bears really hibernate (like the brown bear does), or just take a lot of long naps.
To check this the father of a guy I knew used to dig/push his way into polar bear burrows, with a revolver and a rectal thermometer in front of him.
He never had to fire the gun, but the temp readings he got showed that the polar bears were only sleeping, not hibernating.
See the polar bear FAQ [polarbears...tional.org].
Terje
Re:There's still some ice at the North Pole (Score:3, Interesting)
Tectonic plate movements have a tendency to move things around.
Coke had nothing to do with it. (Score:3, Interesting)
'Twas the Night Before Christmas established, as eyewitness testtimony, that St. Nicholas is "dressed all in red from his head to his foot." Coke just depicted what Clement Clark Moore wrote.
Re:I enjoy the climate change deniers' double thin (Score:1, Interesting)
You miss the point - climate is changing, I do not know anyone who doubts that. What is debated by scientists is if man is responsible.
Why is Mars also experiencing warming globally? Why did the temperature go up THEN CO2 levels rise, rather then the opposite if CO2 is the cause?
Re:Um, why not Antarctica (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets see, according to wikipedia there are a couple of methods of producing PTFE.
One method is to start with polythene and add do a substitution reaction substituting the hydrogen with flourine. flourine does not afaict come from oil.
as for the polythene that is made by polymerising ethene. I'm pretty sure ethene can be made from ethonol which can be obtained from plants.
oil happens to be a conviniant source of simple hydrocarbons which are one of the main ingrediants in plastics but it is far from the only source.
Re:There's still some ice at the North Pole (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, there's more polar ice than there was last year.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png [nsidc.org]
(Daily chart showing icepack compared to last year and to previous 20 average.)
So yes, there's less ice than there used to be, but the somewhat under-reported increase this year over last year casts some question over the long-term trend, it could simply be long term climate oscillation.
Re:Danish here (Score:2, Interesting)
The warm and hospitable people of Greenland might declare [wikipedia.org] independance from Denmark later this year. If they do, Canada and the US will certainly recognise it as a sovereing state. Immigrating to Greenland by a few dozen Canadians and Americans can certainly help with that referendum vote. The future is Green!
Re:Danish??? (Score:2, Interesting)
As someone who was present at an Inuit Seal Hunt in Canada, I'd argue that it is one of the most humane hunts you will come across. The ingenuity of how every single part of the animal is used put a lot of Southern consumerist waste in perspective. By the time every part was neatly carved, any leftover parts deemed not healthy for humans or dogs were neatly cut up and left on the ice so that the birds could all have a meal.
PETA is picking the wrong fight by labeling all seal hunting into one category and is doing a huge disservice to Inuit and other arctic communities that rely upon it. I think most of us can agree that animal cruelty is criminal and PETA is in the right by bringing attention to some of humanity's dark spots. Attempting to take away a primary food source and mainstay of the Inuit culture is the only inhumane thing about the hunt I have personally witnessed.
I think if everybody had the opportunity to compare PETA's propaganda picture of a baby seal being clubbed ( an illegal act ), with all of the facts, PETA would be forced to move on to other important animal rights issues.
I have some unedited videos of the hunt I witnessed on my YouTube profile here: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=bashildy [youtube.com]