While a recent U.S. Geological Survey states the Arctic is affected by current global warming – leading to “Arctic shrinkage” – there’s some good news because a warmer Arctic has resulted in a sudden burst of interest for new business opportunities, states Michael T. Klare in his new book “The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources.” In turn, Klare, who is the director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, states how because resource depletion is accelerating even more rapidly than originally suspected in the Arctic region, there’s now a sort of gold rush going on by the U.S., Canada, Russia, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland because “the Arctic is attracting immense interest from the world’s major energy firms.” Klare also writes on pages 6 and 7 in his book’s introduction that what’s driving all this interest in the Arctic is “the release of geological studies indicating that the Arctic many contain some of the world’s largest untapped reserves of oil and gas.” For instance, Klare points to a 2008 U.S. Geological Survey that states how the Arctic, which occupies a mere six percent of the Earth’s surface, “was said to account for 22 percent of the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in the world."
Rush is on to get business busy in the Arctic
Klare, whose authored 14 books, including “Resource Wars” and “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet,” notes in his new book “The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources,” how both the U.S. Geological Survey and similar studies commissioned by private firms - about the Arctic many natural resources – has “triggered a rush by giant energy companies to acquire development rights in promising Arctic drilling zones.”
The author also writes on pages 7 and 8 of his new book how “most of this activity, at present, is concentrated in the Barents Sea area, above Norway and north-western Russia where this Arctic landscape is green and lush with trees and vegetation."
Many analysts believe, adds Klare, “that this is just the beginning of what has been termed as an energy ‘gold rush’ in the Arctic region.”
At the same time, there's many private business firms now setting up shop in regions of the Arctic for gold and other mining operations.
World demands more energy
In turn, Klare writes “as the demand for energy rises and global warming makes the far north more accessible to survey and drilling vessels, additional field are likely to be developed.”
With this in mind, the author thinks many “giant energy firms” and other business-minded people will be “spending ever-increasing sums on Arctic exploration and acquiring especially hardened ships that can safely navigate ice-clogged seas.”
Also, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal states that “despite grueling conditions, interest in oil and gas reserves in the far north is heating up. Virtually every major producer is looking to the Arctic sea floor as the next – some say last – great resource play.”
What’s the Arctic all about?
The word Arctic comes from the Greek word meaning “bear.” In turn, a geology college text book states that the Arctic’s name refers either to the constellation Ursa Major, the “Great Bear,” which is prominent in the northern portion of the Earth.
In turn, this 2012 text book explained how the Arctic’s climate is changing; although it’s still characterized by cold winters and cool summers. At the same time, precipitation in this region “mostly comes in the form of snow.”
Still, the text book noted how the Arctic’s annual precipitation is low, with most of the area now only receiving less than 20 inches; while “high winds often stir up snow, creating the illusion of continuous snowfall.”
At the same time, Michael Klare writes in the introduction of his new book “The Race for What’s Left” that “the drive to acquire oil and gas leases in the Arctic region is by no means the only sign that we have entered a different age.”
For instance, Klare thinks “the giant energy companies are also pursuing resource ‘plays’ in northern Siberia, in the deep waters of the Atlantic, in remote corners of Africa, and in other previously avoided areas. And similarly forbidding, hard-to-access locations are increasingly becoming the primary focus for the mining industry and agricultural enterprises.”
Image source of a view of the lush area of Eidsfjord in Vesteralen, Norway, that’s situated 160 miles inside the Arctic Circle where a business boom is happening now thanks to global warming that gives this Arctic area a mean annual temperature of about 39 degrees and a three-month summer with warms days at 60 and 70 degrees. Photo courtesy Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic
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