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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.
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.
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."
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Pwned! All your base are belong to
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?
And here I thought the North Pole was a single infinitely small point.
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
The Canadian Navy might have something to say about that, eh?
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.
You are probably more right than you know. The first step is to convince people that things weren't really that bad.
The bears and seals have had, literally, thousands of years to exploit these resources. If they aren't going to use it they should darn well stand aside for someone who is, period.
They had their chance.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
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.
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
Oh... that army...
Yeah, but if they can sit on the oil long enough and wait for the REST of the world's oil to dry up (read: go way up in price) they can make a fortune off of it. Buy low (virtually free in this case), sell high!
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
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?
We're talking about an economic boon that will last decades. Of course people are going to fight over it. Any (fictional) "oil running out, world in panic" scenario would only make it all the more valuable.
Your argument is like saying, "Well, there's a gigantic diamond buried under the fence between me and my neighbor. I'll just let them have it because diamonds are going to run out anyways."
From a more practical standpoint, Russia is grasping at straws. They went from superpower to "not that impressive except for all the nukes." Their GDP is, what, a bit over a trillion dollars per year compared to our 11 trillion? Yet, they still have the pride of a superpower. Just like how if America fell from the top of the world stage, we'd still see ourselves as deserving that status, they too tend to see this as just a setback. Natural resource exploitation seems a good way to bring in money to their economy that could help resurrect their backwards industrial base. It also has geopolitical significance; "take my side or I shut off the taps" makes a nice threat, even when not spoken.
Of course, the resource you're threatening over better *actually* be a big deal. Let's not forget Sudan's threat to devastate the world by stopping sales of acacia gum. I love the terrifying wording:
What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.
"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.
A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world."
"I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way."
As diplomatic threats go, that one gets high points for creativity: Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we'll take away your Coca-Cola.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
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.
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 only you two were serious; squabbles between petty powers can be almost amusing. For example, Tonga vs. the Republic of Minerva. A group of businessmen founded an organization with the goal of creating a libertarian paradise called the "Republic of Minerva". They spent a fortune shipping sand onto a section of the remote, submerge Minerva Reef, raised it above sea level, erected a small stone platform and a flag, and announced their independence. They issued their own currency and started working on everything it is that a country does. Sadly for the libertarian idealists, Tonga rallied every troop they could muster from their 100,000 person nation, including a band of convicts, a brass band, and Tonga's 350-pound king. They invaded and conquered the miniscule sand pile, losing one man in the process of taking the uninhabited island (I kid not; a fight broke out among two of the convicts. The Republic of Minerva had a murder rate higher than its population).
The whole thing would have made a great YouTube video.
Will nothing stop Tonga's unbridled military might? We must stop the Greater Tongan Co-Prosperity Sphere before it is too late!
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
It worked, didn't it?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
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...
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.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
Oh, give me a break. While this tactic may work in some cases, there's no escaping the fact that oil is a finite resource, and that at some point, your oil field will be empty.
There's nothing sinister about stopping production before you've exhausted an oil field, either. At some point, it simply gets too expensive to recover the remaining oil, because of contaminants leaking into the field, or because the remaining oil is too thick/viscous to be pumped up without heating it first, etc. As the price of oil rises, restarting production may become economically viable again. We're seeing this happen at a local oil field (Schoonebeek), btw. Production stopped in 1996, when about 25% of the known contents of the field were pumped out. They're considering restarting production now, and expect to recover another 15% (150 million barrels).