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Russia Claims Large Chunk of North Pole
kungfoofairy writes "Russia has laid claim to over one million square kilometers of the Artic. This announcement comes on the return of a scientific expedition into the region which found that the Lomonosov Ridge connects to Russia. The area is supposed to have a reserve of 10 billion tons of natural gas and oil. 'A BBC map shows Russia's proposal; this set of maps from The New York Times illustrates the area at stake and different ways it might be divided ... The Russians have tried to advance their claim before, and were turned away by the United Nations in 2001. The new geological data is evidently meant to improve the odds for a second try. '"
In Soviet Russia Santa gets coal from you. Knowing the Russians, this claimed territory will become a polluted industrial mess.
...another thing to go to war about.
I might occasionally need ice for my cool drinks with all this global warming.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Countries that would get most by method one:
We like method 1!
Countries that would get most by method two:
No, method 2 is better!
Repeat every 6 years until the whole thing melts and/or people realise that country borders are arbitrary and their first responsibility should be to the human race.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
...the url: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/whats- the-russian-for-santas-workshop/
Roughly, "zavod Santi."
Glad to help.
Thanks, I'll be here all night. Tip your waitress and try the Veal.
The Russians claim part of the North Pole...
Then, they're going to go to war with the planet because we're melting their North Pole with our global warming stuff.
There's only one clear cut resolution to this...
I'd write it here, if only I had more space in the margin.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,211328 9,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
... Canada!!
Yesterday, however, some scientists doubted whether Russia's latest Arctic grab stood up to scrutiny.
To extend a zone, a state has to prove that the structure of the continental shelf is similar to the geological structure within its territory. Under the current UN convention on the laws of the sea, no country's shelf extends to the North Pole. Instead, the International Seabed Authority administers the area around the pole as an international area.
"Frankly I think it's a little bit strange," Sergey Priamikov, the international co-operation director of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersburg, told the Guardian. "Canada could make exactly the same claim. The Canadians could say that the Lomonosov ridge is part of the Canadian shelf, which means Russia should in fact belong to Canada, together with the whole of Eurasia."
----
Pwned! All your base are belong to
1) Global Warming Melts the ice
2) Drill for oil
3) Burn the oil
4) Cause more warming
5) Melt more ice
6) Profit!
Russia is trying to expand the size of its energy hammer. It's nice to see that Putin is trying to bring back the good old times of the Cold War, MAD and Europe as ground zero for Russia's battle for world supremacy.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Can the US claim Quebec and Nova Scotia since the Appalachian mountains run into them?
the irony! global warming melts polar caps that help make drilling for more oil/gas easier...
And here I thought the North Pole was a single infinitely small point.
In other news..
Poland claims large chunk of Rush.
At least the Russians have the balls to go there and get the oil and gas out. To hell with the baby seals and polar bears.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Let them have the north pole. We smart Americans know that the world's oil supply is just about to dry up anyways.
and then hold them accountable for preventing it from melting
if they can do that, they can keep it
i'm dead serious
and in my mind, i grant them wide latitude in what they can do to prevent it from melting
leadership and power is not static, something delivered form simple provenance. leadership and power is based on your ability to solve problems. it doesn't matter who solves global warming, but whomever does, goes the spoils of mankind's gratitude and fealty
but apparently, more people are interested in blame games and incriminations (on the left) and outright denial on the right. apparently, no one is interested in solutions. some guys proposed seeding dead areas of the ocean to increase carbon dioxide sequesterization, and they were opposed by environmentalists
you can't have it both ways folks: either global warming is a problem, and you want a solution, or global warming is not a problem, and it needs no solution. but you can't claim it's a problem, and then block any attempt at a solution. that's logically and morally unworkable. if you make noise about global warming, and block all attempts at solutions (hint: NO solution carries no risks or negative sideeffects) then you reveal yourself to believe in global warming only insofar that you can use it as a political football
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I for one, welcome our new Arctic-owning coal-wielding Russian overlords.
I've just figured out how to start WWIII in my next novel.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
The Canadian Navy might have something to say about that, eh?
Europe connects to Russia as well, and so does China, are they claiming those land masses as well?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hmmm... If those guys from PirateBay or Sealand were smart, they'd pick a spot right near smack in the middle of the North Pole & buy it from Russia... ... with such centralized location with potential pipes going to Canada, US, Russia, Norway (North America, Asia, Europe), they'd have their redundancy fully covered!
On top of that just think of all the money they'd save on server cooling! hehe
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
now that the us military is over committed and short on hardware, russia has decided to take this land. and if they start moving troops in there to defend it, wtf is the us going to do? send the boy scouts?
-.no
You misspelled atic.
captcha: cruder
You are probably more right than you know. The first step is to convince people that things weren't really that bad.
Why is it that all of a sudden that all articles that deal with matters of concern in the real world are getting tagged as slownewsday? Seems like a pretty deal to me that Russia is claiming part of the North Pole, or that the Supreme Court dramatically changed price fixing rules.
I am pondering why the Danish possible claim is not mentioned. In fact, Denmark would like Russia to wait a bit with their land proposal, until we have our scientific basis to claim the North Pole. Also, Santa Clause lives in Greenland, not Finland or the North Pole.
Clicked pie.
...in its entire infinitesimal size!
This news has been all over the last couple of days and almost every story lays out the issue as "Russia claims Entire North Pole!!!" (or something similar), when in fact they have done no such thing.
i f/_42433630_arctic_ice_map416_3.gif) which shows their supposedly outrageous claim based on the sea-floor ridge argument. If one compares that to the more sedate, reasonable NYT analysis here: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/10/09/inter national/20051010_ARCTIC_GRAPHIC_2.html... they are almost the same.
Ironically, the map most used to claim that "OMG! Russia wants it all!" is the one from the BBC (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42433000/g
Both of the "rational" divisions of the territory in the NYT story approximate the exact same area of the "outrageous" division that everyone is upset about. In fact they go a bit further in that they extend Russian territory all the way to the pole. Also, speaking as a Canadian, there is no way that the Russians would be able to claim "all of the arctic" in any event. Canada would fight before that happened (seriously).
It's also interesting that as recently as last year, the US was trying to claim that territory on the Canadian side of the pole was actually all theirs, but because this would be unlikely to anger anyone in the US, it was no big controversy about it in the media. Only in Canada did the idea of the US annexing territory at the North Pole that clearly belongs to Canada get any media play at all. It seems to me that this is really a non-story that is only getting media attention because it's those evil "Ruskies" doing it.
They call their equivalent Ded Moroz, which literally means Grandfather Frost. And Ded Moroz does not "live on the North Pole". He "lives" in Veliky Ustiug.
D 0%9C%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B7
See here: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B5%D0%B4_%
The Russian leaders must be kicking their ancestors in the face for selling Alaska. Stupid Canada for not buying it. Our ancestors should be punched in the balls for that dumb mistake. I propose we trade the St.Lawence Quebec region for Alaska. Its not like Alaskans want to be american nor Quebecers want to be Canadian. Maple Syrup for Oil!!
Okay, who put Russia on that "food plan"?
"All my life I've fought imperialism and now, suddenly, I AM the expanding Russian frontier."
First the North Pole, then Canada, then Michigan and finally all of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Can't you see they've come to take our precious bodily fluids?
technical writing / development
can develop technology to extract the oil from the rumored/claimed Siberian oil/ice, then Russia will probably eclipse even Saudi. Maybe Communism will see a "renassaince" or some resurgence? Maybe Russia will be able to pay its citizens some $70,000 or $100,000 a year? Maybe Russia will show the US a thing or two about extracting oil out of California's coast and out of Colorado and Alaska?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
so does iceland own everything above the midatlantic ridge?
Oh... that army...
..."Russia Claims Large Chuck Norris Pole"?
Given that our Northern Partners want to grab as much of the North Pole why don't us Southerners do the same? Being an Aussie our sheer horizontal coastline size would give us the largest chunk by far! ;)
I guess the arctic circle didn't have a flag.
Eddie Izzard: "We stole countries! That's how you build an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags! Just sail halfway around the world, stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain." And they're going, "You can't claim us. We live here! There's five hundred million of us." "Do you have a flag?" "We don't need a bloody flag, this is our country you bastard!" "No flag, no country! You can't have one. That's the rules... that... I've just made up! And I'm backing it up with this gun..."
I better go make some popcorn.
The melting of the polar ice cap is allowing for new lucrative sea routes which Putin values more than oil.
What Putin said is a plain simple truth. If looking at a plain simple truth you realize that "things weren't really that bad" - you can reject either 1) truth or 2) "that" as in "that bad". Your choice.
But I have no idea what you mean by that statement. It sounds vaguely like a dig at the IPCC, except for the fact that it's complete nonsense. They've never made such a comment, or anything close to such a comment. Was this meant as a joke? If so, could you explain?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The reason there's so much recent fighting over it is that the Arctic Ocean becomes more valuable after the "whole thing melts" and not less valuable. It will be easier to access the oil, and there are shipping rights involved.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
At least Russia is attempting to do it through peaceful and official means and not just taking over territory as it sees fit. If USA decided to claim Arctic-stan, it would have been annexed by the decree of Warlord Bush and without anyone's permission.
I'm not in favour of either side as I live in Canada. But the comments seems to be one-sided and hypocritical. It is time to get out of your ColdWar mindset, and look at things objectively. Neither side is perfect, but lately US has been the aggressor (meddling in other sovereign countrys' businesses). Doesn't make it OK for Russia to do whatever it wants to, but it is doing it through well-established and civilized means.
Would it be *that hard to get a little "regime change" going in Russia. I mean, c'mon it's been a few years now.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
It will set a handy precedent. Eventually the earth will hit another ice age, and as the ocean water recedes, we will lay claim to all of Russia, on account of it being connected to the US via the land bridge in the Bering Strait. It's genius, I tell you.
HOW did that post get modded +1 Insightful?
At least the Russians try to make it valid, the US says they can sail through Canadian waters in the Arctic just because they can.
... that's exactly what I'm referring to. Putin and his Russian nationalists might be no more than 2 bit thugs, but they are 2-bit thugs with huge energy reserves, a chip on their shoulder and the knowledge that energy makes the world go 'round. Throw in the fact that the EU is currently comprised of stubborn members with wildly diverging goals, and the whole thing has the potential to spiral downwards very quickly.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I say we file our claim for the Arctic before they get a chance to correct their misspelling.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
If the US had laid claim to this land before Russia, I don't think US environmentalists would have ever let us take advantage of any oil there. Thats partly why we are so dependent on foreign oil in the first place. Yes, I know...flamebait.
While the Arctic is getting warmer thanks to our carbon economy, we are going to see more claims like that in the future as the area becomes more approachable. In the end, a war could take place just because a previously cold inaccessible area melted and revealed new resources (note that most of the Arctic is already controlled by either NATO or Russia). Perhaps, apart from the economic uses, Kremlin and the oligarchs want to install platforms with missiles nearer the North Pole, just to be prepared for the coming global warming wars. While homo economicus fscks up this solar system's only habitable planet, governments get ready for the next nuclear war. How uplifting...
Colonel Gurlukovich: Mother Russia will rise again!
The US says they can sail through Canadian waters in the Arctic just because they can.
which is really how things have always been. Countries are the top of the power heirachy so they can do anything that other countries don't stop them from doing.
afaict canada is far more dependent on the US than the US is on canda and they certainly have more military power so canada isn't likely to do anything about something like this.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
look it up.
Should have been this one:
http://www.hvorfor.no/bilder/arti/Battleship.jpg
Oil is everywhere on our small planet. Back in the 70's, Alaska's north slope underwent extensive exploration (search for 'Gull Island')- but the oil companies capped all their exploratory wells, never built the second Oil Pipeline, and just kept the wells at Prudhoe Bay flowing. Then they put forth the 'peak oil' theory, which holds that teh oil is going to run out. Now production at Prudhoe Bay is starting to decline, and they're saying, "see! we told you so - we're running out of oil. Simple supply & demand, that's all. Pay up, bitches."
Meanwhile, the Russians are operating with a different guiding philosophy. They found ways to restore the production of their old wells (the fields are being recharged from deeper in the earth), and are making lots of money on the world oil markets.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
It is all under water. So, what troops would that be, the going to send Navy Seals into the artic to tread water??
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
In Soviet Russia, North poles you!
"WWIII Starts Over Ice; Bartenders Crushed"
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Make Your Time.
Further to the above post, if we can convince the world to let us control the mineral and resources rights in our maritime area of responsibility, then us Aussies will get to pwn the world.
Because of our outlying islands and dependencies (Christmas, Cocos, Norfolk, Heard, Macquarie), our Maritime area of responsibility (where we have a commitment to provide SAR responsibilities) covers almost a third of the Earth's surface.
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
These nation things... what bunk. Pangaea can't just be wished away.
Out of all G7 countries, Canada is the only one whose ecomony is now growing at over 3%. And that's in spite of the fact that the high oil prices affect them much more than the US (it's colder up there, and they need that oil for heating as well as manufacturing and driving).
I strongly suspect that Canada will become one of the greatest ecomonic powers sometime this century (and the US will decline; remember Asimov's Foundation? you can smell the decay of the great empire around here)
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Why do people mod things up just because they're anti-US?
Most of the world's major maritime powers agree with the US position that this is an international strait. If anything, it's Canada here that is acting unilaterally.
Although the OP is correct; the Canadians who depend on the US for their defense do not have the means to defend their claim even if they wanted to. That's reality for you I guess.
In Soviet Russia, North Pole takes over YOU!
Wait...
There's oil under those waters
The US has already come up with some "hey no so fast there" rationale to get to it. Let's hope there are no WMDs or bloodshed.
Alaska is bigger than Hawaii. Canada is bigger than Mexico. With a bit of warming, we get more room! We can grow corn in the Northwest Territories and tropical fruit in New England. Greenland will be green land. The Northwest Passage opens up for shipping, allowing easy ship transport from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific.
Good deal, hmmm?
We need to research the best greenhouse gasses so we can really turn up the thermostat.
Sheep, I could understand. It's not right, but hey, I understand. I've seen your British women. Really though, penguins???? That's really demented.
Um... have you looked at who's your main supplier of oil among other things?
Hello Ice Station Zebra, are you there?
Ice Station Zebra? Over...
Please folks! Just don't forget to feed the bear.
Sorry, just showing my age I guess.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
OMG! Those commie bastards are bound and
determined to put Santa outta business.
I just know it in my bones.
RR
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
The US has already come up with some "hey no so fast there" rationale to get to it. Let's hope there are no WMDs or bloodshed.
Let's home yanks take their ball and go home. We don't want to burn down the White House again, like in the Canada/US war of 1812!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRwiH18QwpU
Obviously this area belongs to the US!
In Soviet Russia, North pole claims, no, wait, oh well...
...they will want Alaska back. Better make sure the cheque didn't bounce guys.
After all that is the ultimate goal "a world government". Would be the best step in the right direction.
US invasion?
I'll admit to being wrong about the drilling, as I'm totally ignorant about it and was just using "common sense" (very dangerous). However, what has gotten a lot of press lately is the opening up of the previously mythical "northwest passage". There's been a lot of jockeying about who would be able to get what profit out of it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
"Most of the world's major maritime powers agree with the US position that this is an international strait. If anything, it's Canada here that is acting unilaterally."
It's debatable because it is an "international" strait that is entirely within one country, through a large island archipelago, and it's a very long passage within the country's territorial waters (in the legal sense). To qualify as an "international strait" it must be useful for navigation in a regular commercial and military traffic sense (actually, not merely potentially) and have experienced a sufficient number of transits in that capacity. It is a historical precident that has been tested for other straits in the world in international courts, and by those precidents the Northwest Passage would probably fail currently. Despite its famous name, the Northwest Passage never has been a major shipping lane like most of the other areas treated as "international straights". This is why Canadians got so upset in the 1980s when the U.S. crossed the passage without permission, because it was effectively trying to reverse a historical precident. Were Canada not to protest, then, over time, with sufficient transits of this type, yes, it would eventually establish it as an international strait. It's fine to disagree with the claim, but quite another to actively erode it.
It isn't the same story or law on land, but it is kind of like regularly crossing your neighbor's lawn and then trying to make the case after a few years that public access to what is on the other side is implied by the neighbor's lack of protest. You aren't claiming the land is yours, but you are claiming a right of passage where it didn't (arguably) exist previously. And it really hurts when the neighbor is your best friend already.
Even as ordinary territorial waters, there is still the right of "innocent passage" for vessels, so it isn't as if ships couldn't go through there anymore if Canada's claims were recognized, but in those circumstances there is more legal jurisdiction by the nation whose territorial waters are traversed, and more restrictions on what ships are allowed to do during their passage. We don't want oil tankers (for example) cruising through the Northwest Passage sometime in the future and potentially making a mess of the place with little or no ability to set standards to minimize the risks. The Arctic environment is extremely fragile, and the Inuit are especially concerned about threats to it.
There is a 1988 agreement that U.S. icebreaker voyages would occur with the consent of the Canadian government. That's really all it takes. The agreement is neutral in terms of any effect on the claim one way or the other (the U.S. did not acknowledge Canada's claim, but Canada's claim doesn't become any weaker by the occurrence of unpermitted passage either).
"Although the OP is correct; the Canadians who depend on the US for their defense do not have the means to defend their claim even if they wanted to. That's reality for you I guess."
Saying your neighbor is weak doesn't really excuse you from treating them politely.
Could be a lot worse than this though... the russians could have invaded a country in the middle east based on a far more ludicrous premise than geographical proximity to get their oil.
Check out Black Gold Stranglehold by Jerome R., Ph.D. Corsi and, Craig R. Smith.
They explain in this book that oil is a natural product of the earth, isn't a bunch of rotten animal carcasses, and is actually quite renewable. It's a damn good read.
Libertas in infinitum
After all, Mexico lies on the same tectonic plates as the US, so therefore it MUST belong to us.
Russia's arguments are silly. The UN has said time and time again the nobody owns the Northern Arctic and the simple fact that one piece of land lies on the same plate or ridge as another doesn't make it belongs to the same government..
I don't think megaditto knows Canada exports more oil than it can use and most of that goes to the US. There are billions of barrels of oil in Alberta not to mention gas off Newfoundland. 10% of the oil leaving Canada goes to the US.
I'll admit that after I typed it, I realized that it might initially lead you to the wrong assumption. I kept it anyway, as I thought it might be enjoyable. ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I was attending a conference last year about the oil & gas potential of Arctic Russia (with side-lines into Arctic Canada and Greenland) last Feburary. Interesting potential. But ... it's going to be a long time until the Arctic Ocean is sufficiently free of ice to be confident of getting an oil tanker out (and in!). So perhaps the oil would come out on the railway lines instead.
Hmmm, slight problem there - - - you see the railway lines are either non-existant (and will take a few decades to build), or are already loaded to the gunwhales with hydrocarbons extracted from West Siberia and already spewing oil to the West. (500 km route from my last job in Siberia to my fiancee's city - 16 hours for unimportant passenger trains. The route is packed. Too busy for the necessary trains of ballast to re-build the track supports.)
Potential hydrocarbon reserves are one thing ; extractable hydrocarbons are another thing ; hydrocarbons that can be extracted and delivered to a market are a third thing. That third thing is what killed the Falkland Island's prospects - definite oil, but not enough to pay for the pipelines to get it to shore.
Park the SUV. Time to get the bus.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"